Flurries

Last summer I found a local source of fresh goose eggs, and not the kind that are only slightly bigger than chicken eggs.  These are the really big goose eggs, with a volume of three really large chicken eggs.

I've been trying to use them up.  I haven't worked with goose eggs since, I think, the 1980s, so it's taken a bit of getting used to.  I've made a variety of eggs for various holidays, including a goose eggs pysanka for my father's birthday, and a frog-themed egg for my sister-in-law's.

For the winter holidays I decided to place snowflakes–as many as would fit–onto these eggs, and see how they would turn out.  I drew various sized circles (in pencil) on the eggs, and then drew dividing lines (for six-fold symmetry).  I then doodled in, with wax, all sorts of snowflakes.  It was hard not to repeat myself, and to keep adjoining ones dissimilar, but I succeeded.  I ended up crating three, the first (and the prototype with all the mistakes) for me, and the other two as gifts.  This is what they looked like:

You can see more views of these eggs here.  To learn how to make snowflake eggs, go here.

Copper Country Pysanky

I made pysanky with friends on my recent trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Above is a photo of some of them–the big egg is a normal sized chicken egg, and the smaller ones are cockateil eggs.

SNOWFLAKE PYSANKY

Last year, in late November, I found I had a lot of small eggs left over from pysanka making. Casting about for something to do with them, I came upon the idea of making snowflake pysanky. I'd seen them before on other sites, so decided to try my hand at them.

Using the UGS templates to create six even division, I began drawing--with wax. I found the best way to make the pysanky was just to doodle. I'd played with compasses as a child, and this was similar.

The snowflakes came out quite nice. I attached small findings to them, and then gave them away to friends and family. This year created a whole bunch more.

Like real snowflakes, no two are exactly alike.

You can view my snowflake galleries here.

PYSANKA 9-1-1

Eggs break and crack......It’s an unhappy fact of life. You put hours of work into a pysanka only to discover, as you’re finishing, a crack. What to do?

I've had to deal with cracked and broken eggs both when making and when teaching pysanky. I've written about the approaches I use to "save" pysanky on my website here.

CHEMISTRY LESSON

The discussion at my Yahoo group turend recently as to how aniline dyes actually work, and what the function of vinegar is. Having once been a sudent of chemistry (BA degree), I did a bit of research and reviewed my knowledge of acid-base and organic chemistry to write this treatise about the chemistry of dyeing.

Peruse it at your own risk!

SMALL EGGS

A couple of years ago, just before Easter, I discovered small chicken eggs. I had gone to a shop that sells Amish poultry and eggs, and they were selling them by the dozen. I bought a couple dozen just to play around with, and really liked them.

I found that they were great for making traditional pysanky, like this one

and this one

from Volyn'. Traditional patterns are often fairly simple, and look too sparse on large or extra large chicken eggs.

I also discovered that, except for Easter, the shop didn't carry small eggs. I had to special order them by the case, with 15 dozen eggs to the case. So I had to find more uses for the small eggs.

I found that children like working with them, simply because they are smaller, and easier to decorate. I found that they make really cute Halloween jack-o-lanterns


and penguins.

Rockhopper penguin

And I found that they make lovely Christmas ornaments, when decorated with snowflakes and dyed in jewel or sky blue tones.


This week, as I was beginning to make my snowflake pysanky, I discovered that my Amish poultry place no longer sells small eggs. What to do? Settle for mediums from Kroger? No. Through the wonder of the internet, I was able to find another place locally that sells small eggs.

So I get to make my snowflake eggs after all.............

MORE BROWN EGGS

I've posted more photos of my brown eggs at my website, here and here. I worked on them intermittently over the summer, and finally phtographed and posted them. They are almost all variations on three themes: 40 triangles,


barrel style (horizontal bands)


and 12 diamonds (I'm not sure what the actual name for this division is).


Have a look if you get a chance.

DYEING BROWN EGGS

Has anyone else noted problems with waxing on brown eggs? I noticed that the wax sticks well to the bare shell, but if I dye and try to make a three-color egg, I get loss. The wax comes off of new lines, but not from areas I've colored in between old lines.

It happened with this egg:


(This is a light brown egg; the color balance in this photo does not show this well.)

Note the loss of red in the sinuous line that surrounds the central motif.

Initially I thought it was just an isolated problem, due to a bad egg, but then I noticed it on a few more of my pysanky. And when I took a closer look at the photo I had copied this pattern from, I noted the same sort of defect - loss of the curved red lines.

Any ideas?

I've since avoided the problem by only using the second color (after the brown base) as either the final color, or to fill in areas already outlined, as in this pysanka: