Advent Calendar 2023 Day 2

The Tradition

Day 2 is called Ligligan Parul and the tradition comes from the Philippines where there is an annual Giant Lantern Festival held in the City of San Fernando in the Philippines, not to be confused with The San Fernando Valley in California, USA. It began in San Fernando in 1904 but it's history goes back further, to Bacolor which is the previous provincial capital, and it was a much simpler religious activity that is known today as Lubenas, where the lanterns measured just 2 feet and were made from bamboo and coloured paper.  Over the years the competition of making them has progressed so far that these are now around 15 to 20 feet in diameter, made of coloured plastic or fibre glass and illuminated by 3,500-5,000 electric light bulbs and there is now a limit of a maximum of 10,000 lights because it has become a real big competition between the different administrative divisions of the Philippines.

 The Fibre

The fibre is 80% Merino (23 microns), 20% Extra Bleached Tussah Silk and the colours represent the bright lights of the festival.  This one needs to be big and bright and so we have used Merino and Tussah Silk so that it is both soft and bold.  Imagine this with a black back drop and that is how the lanterns appear in the festival.  It has a really nice sheen, from the Silk and the Merino is really bringing the blues and greens.  Any garment made from the spun yarn would be snuggly and cosy and lovely next to the skin.

My Thoughts

I like the colours in this one, the colours remind me a little bit of a Blue Tit (British garden bird).  Its not an unusual blend in terms of the fibres, Merino and Tussah Silk blends can be found everywhere.  I'm not sure how I will handle the colours, let them blend to give an overall bluey-green yarn or separate them out to give a more colourful yarn. I don't need to make any decisions yet.

As usual I am waiting until I have opened all of the packets before I decide what I will do with it.  I am also writing up these blog posts some time after the event and the first photos are what I took on the day of opening using my mobile phone and the early December natural light, which isn't always the best, and the next photos have been taken some time after using my proper camera and my little lit pop up studio and the colours are more true to life. 

The information that has been printed on the bags is not necessarily correct and there are no fibre content percentages, these have been provided on the chat boards.  

What I have done with my bags is to write the actual fibre content on the bag using a gold gel pen in the gap immediately below the printed details, pretty much the only thing that will show up on black are the metallic gel pens.  This is why I have not taken "new" photos of the bags.