Part Seven: poinsettia

Hi...just a quickie I'm afraid..off to the hospital but here is part Seven of the SAL.

I am all caught up with the stitching after having family here for two weeks and am off to sample the delights of Galway University Hosptial and the Continental Christmas Market (hopefully) so dont have time to share a piccie.

We are almost at the end now!

For this  weeks I included Poinsettia.

I copied this from www.whychristmas.com because it was just so beautifully written! It is a lovely site and while poinsettias became popular in the USA it was def in Victorian times so will still be included!

"Poinsettia plants are native to Central America, especially an area of southern Mexico known as 'Taxco del Alarcon' where they flower during the winter.

The ancient Aztecs called them 'cuetlaxochitl'. The Aztecs had many uses for them including using the flowers (actually special types of leaves known as bracts rather than being flowers) to make a purple dye for clothes and cosmetics and the milky white sap was made into a medicine to treat fevers. (Today we call the sap latex!)

The poinsettia was made widely known because of a man called Joel Roberts Poinsett (that's why we call them Poinsettia!). He was the first Ambassador from the USA to Mexico in 1825. Poinsett had some greenhouses on his plantations in South Carolina, and while visiting the Taco area in 1828, he became very interested in the plants. He immediately sent some of the plants back to South Carolina, where he began growing the plants and sending them to friends and botanical gardens.

One of the friends he sent plants to was John Barroom of Philadelphia, who gave the plant to his friend, Robert Buist, a plants-man from Pennsylvania. Robert Buist was probably the first person to have sold the poinsettias under their botanical, or latin name, name 'Euphorbia pulcherrima' (it means, 'the most beautiful Euphorbia'). It is thought that they became known as Poinsettia in the mid 1830's when people found out who had first brought them to America from Mexico.

There is an old Mexican legend about how Poinsettia's and Christmas come together, it goes like this:
There was once a poor Mexican girl called Pepita who had no present to give the the baby Jesus at the Christmas Eve Services. As Pepita walked to the chapel, sadly, her cousin Pedro tried to cheer her up.
'Pepita', he said "I'm sure that even the smallest gift, given by someone who loves him will make Jesus Happy."

Pepita didn't know what she could give, so she picked a small handful of weeds from the roadside and made them into a a small bouquet. She felt embarrassed because she could only give this small present to Jesus. As she walked through the chapel to the altar, she remembered what Pedro had said. She began to feel better, knelt down and put the bouquet at the bottom of the nativity scene. Suddenly, the bouquet of weeds burst into bright red flowers, and everyone who saw them were sure they had seen a miracle. From that day on, the bright red flowers were known as the 'Flores de Noche Buena', or 'Flowers of the Holy Night'.

The shape of the poinsettia flower and leaves are sometimes thought as a symbol of the Star of Bethlehem which led the Wise Men to Jesus. The red colored leaves symbolize the blood of Christ. The white leaves represent his purity."

Isn't that a gorgeous story..and notice I did reference it so it is not plagurism (anal scientist that I am; I cannot abide 'word theft' and so it must always be referenced!)

Well, I am truly behind in my Christmas preps which is ironic considering all I have been doing for the last three months is stitching Christmas charts!  Hopefully today I will get good news and can get on with the spirit of Christmas!

For your pleasure, here is part 7,.  Feel free to play with the colours of the horse, oh and I have updated the colour table in the SAL Section.  For me though, palaminos rock, though I have noticed on some fabrics the colour of the main doesn't stand out as much as I would like.