Traditions are wonderful things as they connect us with the places where we come from and introduce us to other cultures as well. Besides, we can take traditions forward by employing certain techniques and materials used to make objects employed during traditional events and apply them to other fields.
Take for example woven palms of the kind used on Palm Sunday (today), a celebration marking the end of Lent and the beginning of the Holy Week culminating on Easter Sunday.
In Catholic ceremonies, palm branches are used to commemorate Jesus' entrance into Jerusalem. As he rode into the city on a donkey, crowds welcomed him by waving and laying date palm fronds in his path.
Palm art is common in different places, including some Italian regions (such as Liguria, Puglia, Sicily and Sardinia), in Spain (you can buy palms woven by Spanish artisans also on Amazon), Mexico and the Philippines, while in other countries olive branches are used to commemorate Palm Sunday.
The palms are blessed during mass and sprinkled with holy water and they become sacred objects (ashes from burned palms are kept to be used on Ash Wednesday the following year).
Weaving palms is an ancient tradition and consists in manipulating the long, ribbon-like pliable palm fronds to create mesmerising patterns and designs. You can create a simple basic cross with one palm leaf, or you can take longer fronds and opt for intricate patterns representing flowers, blossoms, braids, baskets, geometrical figures and crowns of thorns.
The easiest design may take you a few minutes to make, but it takes an artisan roughly 4 hours to work on a 2 metre-long palm frond and come up with the more intricate designs like the finely ones seen during the mass held today by the Pope (with a very limited congregation due to the Coronavirus pandemic) in St Peter's Basilica in Rome.
It isn't rare to find tutorials on the Internet (especially on YouTube or Pinterest) that show you how to weave palms, so learning this art is not impossible even for people who have never tried it (besides, we may have more time to do it in this Coronavirus quarantine...). It would be interesting to learn how to weave palms in this style (more basic styles of palm weaving are employed in various countries all over the world, including Vietnam to make accessories such as bags or hats) or maybe use this technique on different materials (ever tried it with solid satin ribbons?) or using palm weaving to create showpieces for a fashion show.
You're not up for the palm weaving challenge, but you like palms? Well, you can then dream about Summer and designs with palms like this silk satin sunflower-yellow mini dress from Nicky Zimmermann's SS20 collection with palm crochet and ruffles.
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