pysanky

I dangled this e-mail as bait last week, and it must have been convincing: pysanky night was full last night (2 of the resulting eggs--the one on the left mine, the other a friend's--are pictured above), and three more friends will show up tonight for a little beeswax, flame, egg, and dye joy. The basic technique is wax resist with layered dyes.

Hello, friends. I've spoken to most of you about this bit of Easter goodness planned at my house next week, but did add a couple of people I thought might be interested whom I haven't seen to chat since I decided...

this: a Nashville friend introduced me to the idea that pysanky, though super-fancy, can be attempted by amateurs. A group of us tried it and found that pysanky technique can also be applied in less fancy ways (a favorite here: http://www.marthastewart.com/article/bewitching-halloween-eggs ). I bought kistkas and dyes and have made it an Easter tradition. Except haven't quite pulled it together to do in Shippensburg....UNTIL NOW.

I've purchased all of the supplies and am happy to share you don't have to spend your month's allowance at Yevshan (but do click the link to see some pysanky examples).

Bring yourself on Tuesday, March 24th, or Wednesday, March 25th, and go home with a beautiful, fancy-schmancy egg you dyed yourself using melted beeswax resist and cute tiny funnels and layers of intense dyes. That you had a lot of fun doing. Not a crafternoon, because it isn't kid friendly: open flames & such. Not that that has stopped a couple of friends from (very briefly) lighting tissues. Quickly stamped out!

I have 6 kistkas & 6 places at my table. Since I'm dying to dye myself, that means I can have 5 visitors each night. 7 pm until ? (so late arrivals are fine). If you're able to make it, reply all so we can all keep track of what's available.

It's the crafting opportunity of the Shippensburg spring. Don't miss it.

best,
Valerie

The kistkas, 3 traditional & 3 machined
More supplies, following my "child of a child of a child of the depression" life rule. Rubber bands are perfect line guides; my favorites are broccoli bands (save everything! recognize the juice lid?).Practicing...
(see Marian's spelling sentences? I raided the recycling.)Dyes. 17 good colors in recycled jars.I made a drying rack from styrofoam (Marian gets one of her medications mail-order, so cardboard coolers make their way to our home monthly) and finish nails...Martha recommended straight pins, but they weren't strong enough.Hooray for crafty friends!Two traditional eggs I did for the girls a few years ago. The traditional colors and figures all are symbolic, and I especially chose the designs for my sweetuns.

spring miscellany

Reuben is getting a little unpredictable with his sleeping, and it's showing in the SLOW pace of some of my projects (reconstituting glazes & Easter dress sewing, most notably), but a good dose of Spring Crafting has been going on nonetheless. I'm really loving this little mouse doll (felted sweater!), and have plans for fox & raccoon companions soon. Nathan suggested a nice Max in his wolf suit (okay, so he thought this was a wolf, but then our conversation continued), so our own Wilde thing (despite his complete disinterest; I tried to get him to pose with this and he tossed it to the floor--5 times--before I could get even a blurry shot) will get one of those. He is definitely getting a full-size suit for Halloween this year, too, by the way.

I took lots of process shots and will be posting a full tutorial for Waldorf-style hand dolls soon. I certainly didn't invent them, but had a hard time finding a thorough tutorial myself when I first started making dolls, and the head technique is rather brilliant; you really need to learn how.

*And more headbands. I cannot seem to quite put away this project; they keep seeming so useful for birthday gifts, the school silent auction, a thank-you to the mom who patiently drives Marian to dance...*Pseudo-psyanky. I plan bi-monthly activities for the 8-11 year old girls at my church, and wanted to do a little pysanky introduction. The night before our activity, I had the girls and a friend experiment with just dropping beeswax off a candle onto the eggs, thinking that this might be easier/safer than using the kistkas. Closely supervised, the girls did well with it, and it was a fun variation, but what was I thinking? Holding a flame in your hand is safer than holding a little funnel over it at arms' length? The next night, I had my activity girls split into 2 groups. Half colored pysanky sheets (I did a page compilation of these images, with a short summary of color symbolism), while the other dyed eggs. The girls did mostly crayon- and sticker-resist dyeing, while I led one girl at a time in trying their hand with a machined kistka.

*A friend with a difficult pregnancy was bemoaning how life on bedrest, with a toddler, was making her crafting desires difficult, so I dropped by a wee spring craft kit with a loaf of bread. I love making these bitty wool felt birds (you may see a finished one here. If you want to make your own, use the bottom photo as a pattern. Mine are about 7/8" long).

still more pysanky

Crafting time has been eaten up by pysanky this week. I've been making special eggs for the ladies on my visiting route for church, plus a couple of others I thought might like special wishes. Tonight/tomorrow morning is _time_ to do the varnishing & blowing & I'll show all my results then. I've had a few more friends over (okay, 12 in total--Marian insisted we count them up this afternoon), the girls each did a couple, andI worked in those precious night time hours that are working out better with baby this week. Lovely.
Last night, I had just a couple more tracks left on my audiobook (a crafting essential for me), so thought I'd finish it up and use the extra 8 minutes to organize that drawer of little ones' coloring supplies that wouldn't close. These are the loose colored pencils. Not the many boxes in their individual organizers at the upstairs table, or the twist-ups, or the boxes in their church bags or those that are part of bigger kits or the miniatures. Just the loose ones. I think we might not need any art supplies in Easter baskets this year...

More pysanky

I've wanted to do a black-and-white pysanka for my dad for years. I'm sure I'm not following the tradition exactly right, but I chose the symbols that most represented what he stood for and this was the result. Black is not necessarily the death color in pysanky symbolism, but (wiki source) represents constancy or eternity, the center of the Earth, the darkest time before dawn. I like the idea of doing a new one every year. Since his birthday is near Easter, the fusion seems right. That can be an awful lot of eggs, but I can just mail them off to different people who loved him. Hooray for huge Mormon families! The candidate list will last more than my lifetime.(Hey, Natalie, check out this, from Gucci's fall 2008 line)

candles

I mentioned before my plot to buy beeswax for a useful purpose. I was feeling a little sad to miss wedding preparation details (because I lived across the country and because I am part of the groom's family, which means a big fat MYOB!--though sweet Christine has been kind enough to ask for my input a couple of times). I had used the Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667 Anglican bishop “Shakespeare of Divines”, as I so-usefully indicated on each slip) quote for a cousin's bridal shower years ago, and thought first to tack it to a couple of sparklers (recent Fourth enthusiam still with us) before I had the beeswax candles inspiration. A lucky change of plans: my new sister-in-law has since told me the details of a rather traumatic dress-on-fire incident when she tried to use sparklers to transform into Tinkerbell...

My first beeswax-of-my-own acquisition was a few years ago (for pysanky), and the girls and I dipped a few candles then. I thought I was pretty much a nature girl when I purchased the unbleached beeswax from a chain craft store, but this year's golden purchased-from-the-keeper tiny tapers make the old ones look positively drab. A few process shots (click on the page & it won't be so wee):

garlands

I feel like I've been temperate in the garland category. Because there are so many that I see in happy crafty blogland that I have found so appealing. But I realized today that I had 3 garland set ups in my house and that was just two too many. Much as I love it, I reflected that April was too late for my awesome Valentine's Day garland, so I just left my dishes in the lurch (guess how often this happens?) and took it down, telling Audrey, who was spread out with her homework in the living room, that it and the sparkle snow (documented here), up in the window this year, just were past. She agreed, "Yeah, because snow is not what we're going for anymore." Indeed. I headed upstairs to the attic ("I'm finding the cards we wind them on") and she kindly took down the snowflakes.

Hm...It turns out that my usual method of winding garlands directly onto their cards is a very good thing.

I rescued a few multi-spangle strands while we watched Bolt (it was pretty awesome), but pretty much just peeled the rest apart and A put the pieces in a ziploc. I'll make it again next year.

The garland I left up is a new one I sewed for my studio window, and is my first non-seasonal one. I'm trying to plot which window should win its grace in the new house...

I cut a pile of leaf shapes from 4 shades of green wool felt, natural linen, and a loose-weave linen. The last is a stiff backing that lined some wool felt I found by the yard at our local fabric odds and ends store. It was intended for facing suit collars, but I peeled the two layers apart and like both of them for different purposes. The wool felt is fine and soft and, though I only found it in 3 colors, it was $5/yd (so I should have bought more...though, yes, there is plenty in my stash!). For most of the "vines" I pulled the felt and linen leaves at random from a bag while I sewed them all in a chain with green thread. I felt like the heavier linen leaves needed a vine with a bit more body, so I laid a medium-weight green crochet thread along the leaves and zig-zagged over it. The technique was experimental, but worked very neatly.


The window is one of the most viewable in our house; it faces the much-used side alley and isn't covered by a porch overhang like most on the ground floor. Previously, the windowsill was covered by a jumbly stack of empty jars (saved for pysanky dyes, incidentally, so now being used!), and just not so cute. I made the cranes (lovely papers that you cannot see) with Origami Club at the girls' school our first year here. They've been sitting in the window, but I strung them up to fly and put the raindrop crystal in a more prominent place. I bought the stained glass bird perching on the garland branch at the Corn Festival last year and Marian made the tissue paper raindrop (it's laminated & staying with me!) at school. This photo shows all the lovely sillhouettes; the blue and green colors are nice, too, in different light. I love them.

Twisting in the wind
I took the garlands outside, trying to get a better photo, but they blew in the wind. The photos were blurry, but I loved how the string lengths between set up the individual leaves to twirl. I'd love to hang these from a porch, but I'm afraid they would tangle with each other. Ideas to prevent this?

egg hunt!

Audrey and Reuben at last year's hunt

Hi, lovers-of-spring! (isn't that everyone?)

I'm hosting a co-op egg hunt this year, and would love to have you bring your little ones if you're available.

This is how it will work: bring one dozen filled eggs (candy or small prizes) for each child that will be searching. Since this plan is automatically self-adjusting, we will thus be perfectly prepared for whatever size group we are celebrating with. Which means you are free to both ignore this invitation and/or invite others. It won't really affect my preparation (although I always do like a nice RSVP so as to manage my expectations).

My yard? Not so big. I do have the good fortune, however, of living a block from James Burd Elementary School, and think that the little wooded area (and surrounding field as necessary) between the elementary and intermediate schools will be perfect for a hunt. I'm going to mark off an area specifically for the 3-and-under crowd, too.

The plan: meet at the playground on the first day of our spring break: Friday morning, April 22nd*. Egg hiding will begin promptly at 11:00, and egg hunting at 11:15*. We can do an organic some-herd-kids-around-playground-while-others-hide sort of thing. Last year we just had the "big girls" hide the eggs, but they took forever so I think more hiders = excellent this year.

Let's all bring food to share. Then make the kids eat "something else" after the hunt before they gorge on chocolate. You can be healthy-ish if you want and we'll call it lunch. I do hear Holly is bringing donuts, though, and I always like to make carrot sugar cookies for Easter... There are a couple of tables at the playground, but I recommend a picnic blanket or two as well. I'll have napkins & cups.

Easter dresses = cute pictures, so I'll make my kids wear theirs. Unless they complain, in which case I don't think this is a battle worth waging. You can wear whatever you want, of course, but we can play fancy and that would be fun for those of us who like that stuff. Hats, maybe?

In case of rain: no hunt. Do your own in your living room & we'll try again next year :).

*timing: we're out of town Saturday/Sunday & I'm bringing my mom to the airport on Thursday afternoon. So Friday's good for us! (And will hopefully catch a few of you before vacation, too. If you're already OUTTA HERE! by then, well, I hope it's delightful. We'll miss you but wish you well). I think morning is good for an activity, but late morning will be warmer (we hope...).

Best,
Valerie

PS: After skipping it the last couple of years, I am psyched for pysanky again this year, sometime during the week before, when my mom is here. Interested? Let me know...