The Countryman's Favour is a small Harvest Token, the kind of piece a farm worker once carried at the close of the harvest. One reading places it at the annual hiring fair, worn by labourers as a badge advertising their availability for the next season's fields. The other places it in the hand of a young man at the end of the harvest, plaited as a gift to a sweetheart who, if the feeling was mutual, would wear it over her heart.
Lucy plaits the Countryman's Favour by hand from heritage straw and adds a ribbon loop. She describes pieces in this family as "tokens of luck, love and faith, using locally harvested straw," which is about as accurate a one-line summary as the form will take.
Roughly 12cm with a 6cm ribbon loop. Hang it on a beam, a hook, the back of a door, or set it down somewhere a small object can do its quiet work.
Lucy Hook-ChildThe Countryman's Favour is a small Harvest Token, the kind of piece a farm worker once carried at the close of the harvest. One reading places it at the annual hiring fair, worn by labourers as a badge advertising their availability for the next season's fields. The other places it in the hand of a young man at the end of the harvest, plaited as a gift to a sweetheart who, if the feeling was mutual, would wear it over her heart.
Lucy plaits the Countryman's Favour by hand from heritage straw and adds a ribbon loop. She describes pieces in this family as "tokens of luck, love and faith, using locally harvested straw," which is about as accurate a one-line summary as the form will take.
Roughly 12cm with a 6cm ribbon loop. Hang it on a beam, a hook, the back of a door, or set it down somewhere a small object can do its quiet work.
Lucy Hook-Child plaits corn dollies and harvest tokens in heritage straw from her studio in Essex. Two of her third great-grandaunts were straw plaiters in Belchamp Walter in the 1850s. She is one of the makers keeping this Red List craft alive today.
Lucy Hook-Child plaits corn dollies and harvest tokens in heritage straw from her studio in Essex. Two of her third great-grandaunts were straw plaiters in Belchamp Walter in the 1850s. She is one of the makers keeping this Red List craft alive today.
