AT EASTER TIME:

I like Easter.  I like that it doesn't seem so over-wrought and over-hyped as Christmas.  I like Easter egg hunts.  I like that it is four whole days off and I even like that there is a sombre day and a happy day, with an ordinary day in between.  I loved Easter hymns as a child for some reason and, as a crafty mother got very excited about Easter Bonnet Parades!  

Like Christmas, Easter is a time of rich symbolism - much of it dating back to pre-Christian festivals, but today overlaid with rampant commercialism. The main symbols are of eggs and bunnies. Eggs have always been a fertility symbol, and as the earth - in the Northern Hemisphere at least - springs back to life at this time of year, its not hard to understand why eggs were given as gifts - often coloured and decorated - and now, of course, made of chocolate. Rabbits - or strictly speaking, hares - seem to date back to16th Century Lutheran Germany with stories that depicted hares bringing baskets of coloured eggs to good children. Its not absolutely clear why, except that, as the winter recedes and rabbits start to breed (prolifically) they are another obvious symbol of re-birth and spring.

Where there is a symbol, there is also a rich collection of fabric prints - and so, leaving aside the sickly sweet, here is my Easter selection:

Barneby Gates have morphed mad Boxing Hares - here in gold on natural linen - into a florentine trellis.

Gabi Bolton, of Original Little Bird, manages to avoid the sweet and sickly by giving her fabrics a quirky faded vintage feel.  This one is called Bunny Scrapbook.  

Thornback and Peel make large scale and detailed prints on linen.  This one is called Rabbit and Cabbage and takes me straight back to Mr MacGregor's garden.  Here's a close-up:

Peony and Sage make this hand-drawn print called Mr Hare on Flax with Red Dots (I love how specific that name is!)

Peony and Sage also make this pretty print called Feather and Egg.  

Here's another Feather and Egg print - this time from Vanessa Arbuthnott - printed in duckegg and denim on linen.  

HAVE A HAPPY EASTER!

WE'RE ALL GOING ON A SUMMER HOLIDAY

....and right now, with the sun beating on London pavements, the line from the song conjures the joys of the English seaside - seagulls, fishing boats, pebbles and sea-pinks. Here are 7 of my favourite fabrics that will bring that all back home once the holidays are over:

Whitby in washed denim on oatmeal 100% linen by Minimoderns

Peony and Sage's Seagulls in storm blue

Another Minimoderns print called Dungeness in emerald, inspired by the wild Kent coast.

Sanderson's print of the huddled cottages of St Ives in Cornwall

St Jude's Deep Sea print in Storm blue

More seagulls, this time from Scion, called simply Flight

And finally, fishing boats from Harlequin, called Sailaway.

SAVE OUR BEES!

This morning demonstrators dressed in yellow and black plan to converge on Downing Street to buzz members of the Cabinet to uphold an EU ban on the use of neonicotinoid pesticides across the green fields of England. These pesticides are widely held to be behind the terrifying drop in bee populations around the world, giving rise to serious concerns about the sustainability of modern farming methods and ultimately our own food security. I had already planned a look at bees as a motif on textiles and today seems, in support of this urgent cause, a good day to post my findings.

It was Napoleon who, in the days before widespread literacy, knew the power of a symbol - a pictorial representation of an idea - when he saw one. In 1804, having decided to crown himself Emperor, he was looking around for suitable emblems with which to adorn his trappings of power. He chose the bee, symbol of immortality and resurrection, and adorned his red velvet coronation robes with gold embroidered bees. Josephine also had gold bees embroidered down the length of her white satin gown and even on the toes of her coronation slippers. The bee was incorporated into Napoleon's coat of arms and was lavishly used to decorate his palaces: on carpets, wall-hangings and upholstery.

The bee is still used today as a very traditional damask upholstery fabric, usually woven into silk surrounded by another empire symbol, the laurel wreath, like this example from Lee Jofa:

Chelsea Textiles have included a sweet embroidered bee in their small sprigs embroidered linens:

And here is a highly graphic and enlarged version from Timorous Beasties:

Peony & Sage have used the bee motif on several of their printed linens: firstly lined up in the traditional repeat, then slightly skewed and finally scattered randomly:

Barneby Gates have placed their Honey Bees appropriately in a geometric honeycomb:

And finally, Corita Rose have used bees on a vibrant printed velvet that bears little relation to the precise placement of its napoleonic predecessor:

So lets ban neonicotinoids today - LONG LIVE THE BEE!