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Monday 1 April 2013

Happy Easter

I can't believe that it's april already - though the weather still doesn't let up. windier than the last few days - still as cold and unfriendly as it was.... yesterday morning I hoped that DS might be too old for an easter egg hunt outside - he may be a cool teenager, but with stuff like that  he still behaves like a five year old:) luckily Dobby is too lazy now to "help" with the egg hunt - when she was younger you could always hear her successes - loud crunching meant that she had found an egg:) when I see all the work people go through to colour their eggs I have a bad conscience - but I don't like cold boiled eggs, so I have to do the job right before breakfast on easter sunday. not enough time to go fancy with tights, leaves etc. - just enough to use food colours and a simple dip:
 I put some food colourings into a mug, add a bit of water and some vinegar and dye the hot, just-boiled eggs for maybe 2 minutes. the yellow needs a bit more of the dye, because all the eggs I can buy here are brown. and I never get proper purples - they always turn out brown with a purple tinge:) luckily we found all the eggs - a few years ago we missed one and much later, when Michael cut the grass he hit it with the mower - you wouldn't believe the disgusting smell! the dogs were delighted though....
 the leftover dyes work well on wool - this is teeswater top that I "painted" and steamed after breakfast....
 and to prove that the lemon tree didn't only do one lemon (and to make you envious:)  - my whole harvest:) for now.... the last one is still a bit green - but what I find odd is that apparently all the fruits ripen now - even though some are still extremely small. we discussed our first pickings for some time - and decided to do a marmelade with it..... they are untreated, so there's no problem with using the peel in it.
 
on saturday we had a group meeting with the Connacht Textile Crafters again. the demo this time was the making and decorating of felt beads. not the usual round felt balls; you first make the bead from a piece of dyed felt (like the paper beads kids make), roll it up into different shapes and then start decorating. with metallic yarns, fine wires, beads etc... I am not really a jewelry buff, so I decided to skip making a necklace - and just made two beads, for a pair of earrings. I finished the first, but ran out of time for the second. I still have to do the embroidery and put everything together, but I can do this at home, because I took some materials with me. other than that I was extremely unproductive at the meeting!:( I already know that I never finish much, but making a single crochet hexagon must be the absolute low point for me:( and even though they are extremely simple to make - I even managed to choose a wrong colour once:) maybe I shouldn't take anything at all and just chatter and watch and do nothing at all?

7 comments:

Delighted Hands said...

The beads are very pretty-what a nice way to embellish a 'scrap' of wool! The eggs are very nice-we always had brown eggs, too! I love the rovings dyed-a good spin is in store for you! Happy Easter!

Nina said...

I like the beads. Your Easter Egg Teeswater roving is the colour of spring flowers. So pretty!!

Andrea D. said...

Die Eier sehen toll aus, sie haben so einen metallischen Glanz! Und um deine Zitronen beneide ich dich ganz besonders, die schmecken sicher traumhaft.

LG Andrea

Mademoiselle Marie said...

I didn't know that it's possible to grow lemons in Ireland?!?
Your eggs look awesome! We always dye them on Easter sunday morning too. Our are brown, too, and we tried to dye them yellow but they looked the same after 3 minutes in the dye bath :( Only the inside had some yellow lines...
Maybe we should try red or blue next year - yours look really fancy!!

Anonymous said...

deine zitronen sind umwerfend...gruß wiebke

Elke Schwarzer said...

Liebe Bettina,
soooo viele Zitronen, das ist ja der Wahnsinn, da bin ich wirklich neidisch!
Die Buchfinken sind jetzt immer so schnell, wenn ich "I love robins" füttere, dass für Rotkehlchen wirklich kaum was übrig bleibt. Aber Amsel und Heckenbraunelle naschen jetzt auch, und zumindest die Amsel steht ja auf der Packung.
VG
Elke

Leigh said...

I am officially envious of those lemons! Beautiful! So are the eggs and yarn. And I like the felt and beads too. :)