Craft Works : Flower Arrangement /Stringing kachaparam

Hello Vidhya,
I was not aware of this thread, since it was started when i was away, and i guess i would not have known about it if mohana did not post something today here..
My , a thread with so much FRAGRANCE and i almost missed it....
Did u try any garland making with tulips Vidhya....:

Chitra, you are really rekindling my memories of Madurai....i am feeling so homesick , contemplating on atrip back home sooner....

But Vidhya, where do u find time for all these and i am amazed that your activities are diversified....and i too remember those looooooong ago days when i could string flowers with mom, granmom with no other worries...in a way all these modern way of life has taken away our simple pleaures and activities, and just being together with family or friends!
Ohh...i am going away from Fragrance, and Flowers....so let me halt myself here....
Chitra, why dont u make a trip out here , we will have a cookery, flower stringing and religious workshops , book reviewing,and not to say all the fun we can have....ha ha....What do u say Vidhya?

You are really living up to your name by your sweet wotds about me & vidya - I do agree Vidya does deserve it every bit !
You have called me repeatedly that I have contemplated about making a trip soon !
I repeat what I wrote in Ask Chitvish, yesterday - if only wishes were horses !
Love & regards,
Chithra.

Thanks for the invitation to visit you. Br careful what you wish for, sometimes you will get it! See you soon!

cheers
VR

Wishes can be more than horses, they will turn into Swans (Luft hansa) and carry u here, you need to wish more strongly and i will also join in the Energy...ha ha...this is turning into some other thread....so back to Blooms And Petals....

Here also spring has set in and i had Tulips in garden...now planning to get some uthiri poo and string garlands....in all the styles....will post FB soon as to how successful i am!

check out the link below & see if anyone can identify ramabhanam or any of the other flowers spoken about in this thread... if so it may help others like me who don't these flowers' names to recognise them.
http://toptropicals.com/html/toptrop...photo_db/J.htm

Hi all !
Talk of stringing flowers brought back so many memories, some that i dint even know i had ! When my sisters and I were kids in midlength pavadais and tightly plaited oily jadais, my grandmother would hold court in the backyard, overseeing two maids whose chore it was to harvest baskets of jasmines, kanakambaram and chembarutti flowers from our garden and weave them into garlands for the gods and framed ancestors and into thick ,fragrant hair ornaments for us. It took them about 2 hours to complete the ritual everyday.

Its amazing to think of such leisure now. Grandma is gone; gone is the huge garden, swallowed up by a parking lot. And gone too are the snake like shiny plaits that carried the white frothy crown of woven jasmines so proudly.
These days, we hardly bother about flower strands. Its been ages since i made a decent lenghth by hand. And if a gun is put to my head, i think i will manage to deliver a "saram" expertly strung using needle and thread !

By the way, do people in tamil nadu still use the banan stem fibre to string flowers, like grandma's maids used to ?

vidyasarada

hi Vidyasarada,

Nice to read your posts here and in Uyir thread. U write so well. Doubly blessed by Sarawathi Devi, right?

Dear Vidyasarada,
yes, we still string flowers using vaazhai naar. But commercially, thread is used now. It is work for the people to season the naar, so they rather use thread. Do you know, in temples in Kerala, flowers or garlends strung with cotton thread is not used for pujas? There is an announcement in temples asking the devotees not to bring thread strung flowers to the temple. In some temples, dharbhai grass is used to string lotus etc to make garlands to the dieties. It is very nice to see the temple employees making them.

dear vidyasarada,
Yes verymuch and madurai also and trichy too they cant do without the banana stem...even in udupi there is a different variety of mallige...u bring back memory of my mother and her farm we all used to sit along with servants to do the sarangal....so many variety.....regards sunkan

Dear Vidya24, Varalekshmy, Sunkan

Thanks so much for the amazingly prompt response and the nice things u say . I am really thrilled about this concept of a ladies community on web, this is almost like a back-verandah arattai arangam ( have never been member of any web societies )
I'm glad to learn that the banana fibre is still in use in cities. I have seen it in small town temples ( yes, in Udupi and in Ghati-Subrahmanya and Horanaadu too)
Besides the eco-friendly fibre, the large leaf used to parcel the flowerstrings is also slowly diappearing, except near temples .

This thread has catalysed an urge to try my hand at some good old fashioned flower weaving .
Regrards
vidya sarada