23.3.11

Last week I had my first experience with the traditional Ukrainian egg decorating technique called Pyskanky. Using the special little tools called Kistkas, wax, candles, and jars full of dyes, the girls from the beehive all got together to work on this beautiful (yet difficult!) craft. Anna wrote a thorough post about the technique and process over at the beehive blog. Mine turned out a little sloppier than I had hoped. Thin steady lines are hard to achieve and my kistka kept clogging. I was also overly eager to see the end result and thus rubbed off half the dye with the wax because I didn't let it dry after the last dye bath. I blamed the eggs at the time, but later realized that this is what happened. All of the supplies are available locally over in Dundas at the Ukrainian Store, and I can definitely see this craft becoming an easter tradition.

Today however, it feels far from easter. It feels like the middle of winter, just when we all thought spring was here. Yesterday we noticed flowers coming up in the garden! This morning we woke up to a dumping of snow and it hasn't stopped yet. Jeff works in education so he had a snow day. It was so tempting to stay home too, but there's too much sewing to do so I dug out my snow boots and made my way through the storm to the studio. My sewing machine looks out the window, so I overlooked the blowing snow all day long, which was actually kind of pretty.

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