Monday, June 4, 2007

Thanks Hope!!


Because of Hope, I googled Hair Works and this explains exactly what I was told by my Aunt Jessie.

"Another form of hairwork is hair flowers. These are formed by "stitching" the hair with fine wire over a rod which forms a series of loops which are then formed into different flower shapes. Most of the hair wreaths were formed into a horseshoe shaped wreath that was placed on a silk or velvet background inside the frame. When memorial wreaths were made, hair was collected from the deceased and added to the wreath whenever any one died. The top of the wreath was always kept open at the top....ascending heavenward. It was said that the newest addition would be placed in the center, and then moved to the side to become part of the large wreath when the next person passed away.
Not all hair flower wreaths are memorials, some contain the hair from an entire church, a school, family etc. These wreaths could get quite large in size. They were made at a time when there were no pictures."~copied

2 comments:

Sandy said...

Saw ones like this on Antiques Roadshow.

Manuela@A Cultivated Nest said...

I've read about them, but have never actually seen one until now. Very cool!

Manuela