It's a beautiful sunny Easter morning. We woke up to some fog with the sun shining through it onto the ewes and their lambs out in the pasture. Very beautiful, but with no batteries in the camera, I couldn't get photos. I was able to get a few indoor shots of the things I've been doing this week.
Last night I showed our oldest son Alex how to get started with Ukrainian egg decorating. It's a time consuming project, so he just did a quick one color egg. Since I was very into wax resist egg decorating before fiber took over my life, I have a nice collection of electric kistky. They are so nice!
This past Monday, while shopping with friends for art supplies for an upcoming watercolor class with
Jeanne Carbonetti, I was able to visit Luba Perchyshyn at the
Ukrainian Gift Shop . I can't believe it's been 10 years since I got a Minnesota State Arts Board grant to mentor with Luba! At 87, she's still going strong decorating eggs in the shop. I took this opportunity to buy the latest UGS design book.
I don't know why, but I also made up a batch of flour/salt dough and made some sheep ornaments. Nancy K. might remember the sheep mold on the right. We found these molds in a second hand shop in Maple Plain, MN years ago while on a trip to
Detta's Spindle. I planned to make some sheep cookies out of the mold for Easter, but after doing five of the ornaments, I took the easy way out and just used my cookie cutters to use up the rest of the salt dough. I did doves, BFLs, and various lambs. Not sure what will ever become of them.
And last, but certainly not least, I made pies for Easter last night. Yes, I had to test that one out! Two Banana Cream and one Chocolate Cream. I had one graham cracker crust, but used my favorite pie dough recipe for the other two pies. Here it is:
Mix together in medium bowl, 1 1/2 C flour and 3/4 tsp salt.
Cut in 1/2 C shortening and 1 T butter until crumbly.
Sprinkle 4-5 T milk over this and work into dough. Divide into two balls and roll out for crusts.
For single crust pies, roll crusts and and place in pans, prick with a fork and bake at 425 degrees for 10 minutes. (The recipe really says to bake it at 450 degrees, but I find that 425 works better in my oven and makes a more tender crust.)
Happy to say there is NO Easter candy in our house this year. :-)
Oh, Becky--your psyanky look wonderful! I've done some with my children over the years, but they're not very good...here's a link to some I've posted: http://woollove-functional-fiberart.blogspot.com/2010/07/egg-cozies.html
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Nice eggs Heather! I love doing pysanky, the smell of the beeswax, the intricacy and symbolism of the designs (which makes the eggs more than just decorative objects). My eggs even got me a trip to the White House in 2005 when I did the Minnesota egg for the White House Easter Egg display. I still enjoy doing them, but there's only so many hours in a day.
ReplyDeleteThat's a remarkable achievement, Becky! You're right, though...for myself, if I take on too many different things, I feel like they all suffer...but, still...you're famous!! XXO-
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