Yesterday was Monday

And since my Tuesday is even more miserable than some other days lately (the crisis having a huge impact on my business), this evening I refuse to worry more and I'll blog about - yesterday :)
(I need to pay my yearly tax till the end of the month, don't have the money for it, but I can still expect a miracle, such as winning a million on the lotto, meeting a zillionaire or having a bag of banknotes fall on my head from way above)

Lucy and Melissa - I will email you tomorrow. I know I'm late!!

We'll start the Monday tour with a lookie at the bunny I made for Lucy during the week-end. Hope you like it! And thank you to all others who played!! (BTW, what's the name of this traditional Easter plant in English and in French)? They just started selling bunches of them in the streets and I couldn't resist stuffing the little pocket with a few cut branches, replacing the green raffia that was supposed to ressemble grass.

The rabbit is a pattern I got at Pattern-Mart.com but I chose to not do it "primitive" in style. Instead, I used Tilda fabric for both the bunny and the pocket, adding a gold wire hanger, black pins for the eyes and Tilda ribbon, again, for the bow. I'm thinking of doing a couple more for family for Easter. All hand-sewed, I've yet to buy a sewing machine.

Then, in the early evening, I participated in a course about making pisankis decorated with wax. Oh that was fun, pure fun. Here are the pisankis we made (7 ladies of very varied age):

I would even venture to say that making them is as pleasant as cross-stitching! I'm really hooked and hope to make many of them next year for gifties. I don't really have time to do it this year - just dying the eggs and preparing them takes a lot of time. Painting with wax takes just a few minutes, really.

Here is the fantastic woman who taught us the technique. She was so incredibly friendly and knowledgeable, the whole session started with a long description about various traditions, regional patterns, preparing the eggs, different techniques of decorating them. We only made the wax version, but we learned another technique in case we'd like to have a hand at it at home. Oh I'm just so happy I decided to fork out the money for the course.

I have to say though that decorating the pisankis is definitely easier for people who can draw and/or paint. Me, whether I draw a cat, a cow or a dinosaur, you wouldn't know. So I'll publicly admit that the result of my work is satisfactory enough for me, but the other ladies made real wonders. My eggs were really... I can't find a good word ;-). Here are the 3 eggs I made during the course, trust me, they look much better on this picture than they do in real! LOL

The basic procedure was as follows: we had a little tea-light burner each, in it we had bee wax with white pigment, and then we dripped a special tool (basically the blunt end of a pin that is mounted on a wooden stick). The whole trick is to learn when the wax/pigment mix is too hot, too cold, because the wax won't draw well. It's really relatively easy to learn after the first try.

The eggs are dyed by keeping them 5-10 minutes in heated water with the dye. The multicolor version which we didn't do require much more work. Basically you need to dye and wax-paing the eggs several times, but it's quite a complex procedure.

The girl to my left studies architecture and she made very regular patterns, simple decorations, but straight, delicate lines:

The person in the background made real gems. She never made pisankis before, but she was obviously gifted for drawing. She also created very original designs. Our teacher said she's ready to have her work sold. She wasn't very open though, I regret I didn't take pictures of her work.

And just before leaving my building, I checked my mailbox and see what dear Harmien sent me!!

He's cute beyond words!!

Ra-ra-ra, I see I didn't upload a picture of the cute bunny notebook and orange skein of Caron Impressions... Thank you so much again, Harmien, for thinking of me!!

Sometimes Mondays are much better than Tuesdays :).