Eggs and Randomness

This past week's Picture Inspiration prompt was to bring our camera everywhere so that when something random and wonderful popped up, we'd be ready. This was hard for me because I already take my camera everywhere with me, and most of what I shoot is actually totally random. So I had to look harder for something that said random to me. More on that at the end of the post.

Yesterday our friends came over to dye Easter eggs with us. We (actually S) blew out the eggs the day before and used the eggs to make matzoh brei for lunch, because we do elements of both Easter and Passover. I love mixing the two traditions like this.

We used Ukrainian egg dying tools and dyes, not because any of us hails from the Ukraine, but because they are a lot more interesting than food coloring or drug store dyes. If one is making true pysanky, one uses raw eggs and goes through an elaborate process of turning them for months to keep them from going bad, but we blew ours out first.

This type of egg dying involves scraping beeswax into kistkas, melting the wax over a candle flame, and then using the kistka to draw designs with it on the egg. After drawing a design, one dyes the egg and then adds another color of dye. I was going to say it's harder than it sounds, but I'm realizing it doesn't sound that easy. I find it very difficult and can't imagine being able to get the intricate designs of traditional pysanky.



As you can see, the candle flames add a lovely atmosphere to the dying process.

Here are some of our finished eggs (mostly one of my daughter's):



We will thread these like ornaments and hang them on forsythia branches, which aren't quite blooming here yet but will be at my in-laws, where we celebrate Easter.

Oh, and about the total randomness I needed for Picture Inspiration -- I thought our kitchen table looked pretty random after the egg dying.



I want to say thank you to our friends for coming and helping and making this such an enjoyable day. And I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday, whatever way you celebrate.