Monthly Archives: March 2021

Easter Eggs!

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Pink Easter Egg with embroidered daisies

I have continued making Easter eggs this week and this got me thinking ~ What is the connection between eggs, bunnies and Easter?

Firstly, Easter is probably the oldest and most important festival of the Christian church as it celebrates the ressurection of Jesus. It could also be associated with the Pagan Goddess Eostre, who represents spring and fertility, as Pagans celebrated her in a month that was known as Eosturmonath in Old English which often fell just after the spring equimox and is likely where the word Easter originates.

So what about easter eggs? I hear you ask!

The spring equinox marks when light is equal to darkness and then continues to grow. Pagans celebrate this period as a time for renewal where eggs take centre stage probably due to the fact that hens lay fewer eggs during the winter months and also the egg is a symbol of new life.

The decorating of eggs has a long history with decoratively engraved ostrich eggs being found in Africa that are approximately 60,000 years old.

Decorating eggs, as an Easter tradition, dates back to the 13th century. Many cultures have their own traditions regarding egg decoration .

In Christianity the thought is that eggs were forbidden during Lent so people began painting and decorating them to mark the end of the period of penance. The church continued with this tradition, decorations became more ornate the eggs were often given as gifts.

From the 17th century Easter started to become ‘commercialised’ with egg-shaped toys being made for children. During the Victorian era cardboard and satin covered eggs were given, they were filled with small gifts and chocolates. During the 19th century Carl Faberge, made highly bejewelled eggs for the Russian Czar and Czarina, he made 50 in total, these have become highly prized, If and when coming to the market selling for millions of pounds.

Today, eggs are still decorated as they are a fun activity for children to do.

Today Easter is associated, by many people, by the overwhelming amount of chocolate eggs available rather than the Christian celebration of Jesus’ resurrection or the many other religious festivals and traditions. So has Easter become a festival of chocolate?

Now what about that Easter bunny?

Well believe it or not he goes back a long way, he actually pre-dates Christianity and has his origins in Paganism as rabbits were the most potent symbol of fertility and along with the egg, the start of all life, was often considered to have magical powers. To this end children would leave out their Easter bonnets or caps for the coloured eggs that the Easter bunny would deliver if they had been good.

Scheepjes Catona Yarn
Bunny face Scheepjes Catona Yarn

Having made lots of pretty Easter eggs I then thought I need an Easter bunny or two. Well here is the first completed bunny face and another nine to complete. What am I planning to do with all these bunny faces? Well you’ll have to wait until next week to find out!

Last Easter I made small bunny bags, these were rather cute and when gifted full of mini eggs were much appreciated by the little people in my life.

I look forward to writing again next week, which of course will be Easter and I’ll show you what happened to that cute bunny face.

Bye for now and keep safe.

Bunny face pattern my own

Yarn: Scheepjes Catona

Pink and Blue Easter Eggs with embroidered Daisies pattern by @alistar_toys (I did adapt this pattern a little). Yarn used: Hobbii Rainbow 8/4

Colours!

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“I prefer living in colour” David Hockney.

It’s been a pretty dull week weather wise and after making the pretty spring flowers last week I have been looking at colours in a little more detail. This has helped brighten the grey days and has shown me that colour is truly important in our lives.

Colour can be seen everywhere but nowhere more than what is around us….Nature! There is such variety of colour, for instance, the sky – as I said previously this week, the sky has mostly been shades of grey (yes, I know there is a trilogy of the shades of grey – not the same thing I can assure you!) but think ahead, now that we have offically entered spring – Spring Equinox was today 20th March at 9.37am, of the longer days, glorious clear blue skies and fluffy white clouds rather than the dark ominous skies and clouds of the autumn and winter months. It reflects the wonder of the rising sun and the beautiful hues when it sets. In the term nature I also consider animals, birds and insects, thinking of the beautiful colours amongst these species and how it works. A lot of animals can change colour depending on where they are or what they are doing – It can be used as camouflage, for protection or to attract a mate or to embolden them to scare of a predator. It is ususally the male in the bird world that is usually the most colourful, Charles Darwin developed much of the theory that helps to explain this. He concluded that the colour differences between birds resulted in the preference from female birds for bright colours in their males, I am happy that this isn’t the case in humans! It is also thought that because females are more exposed to predators when incubating they tend to be more dull and drab in colouring. Colour can also help individuals to recognise their own species. And in species that are not good to eat colouring provides a warning to possible predators.

I have digressed considerably for which I appologise but I’m sure that you can see that I have been closely looking at colour and as another after thought regarding colour and food, food is always more appetising when its colourful and I can’t think of any meal, when dining out particularly, that hasn’t been colourful!

We, the human being, can identify with the amazing world of colour and how nature fulfils it.

We use colour to identify with as in if ‘someone is feeling blue’ they might be suffering from depression or if a person is described as bright and cheerful they might be considered to be a ‘colourful personality’, red is often associated with anger, white calmness or peaceful and green jealousy. It has been said that some colours are more conducive with a positive attitude than others. So not only does colour give pleasure but it also has a purpose.

“Mere colour can speak to the soul in a thousand different ways” Oscar Wilde.

Following this, I have come to the conclusion that I actually like all colours whether they are bright and bold, pastel or the more muted naturals. I think my favourite colour is the one I’m using at the time which, bearing in mind, my current project is small and uses five different colours means my head has been quite busy deciding which I like best!

“Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment” Claude Matisse.

So my questions are – What are your favourite colours? Bright? Bold? Pastels? Muted? Why are they your favourite? Do you think colours affect your moods/emotions?

As I’ve said, I like all colours and I particularly like putting bright, bold colours together that might not necessarily go together but once applied do! (in my opinion)

Although, my projects may have been small they have given me such pleasure and I’m really happy with the end results so far.

What do you think? Cute eh!

This little project will continue for a while, because I love them so much, but there will be other projects that I’ll continue to work on and there is a possible project which will compliment the pretty egg decorations for Easter.

I asked last week how do you like to decorate for Easter, if you decorate at all. Well these little beauties will definitely be part of my Easter decs this year.

As you can see I have included a few quotes this week from some fairly influential people that I think work well with my chosen topic for this blog, what do you think? Can you add to these? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please leave a comment, if you wish, but remember to be kind.

Bye for now.

Patterns used this week:

Easter Eggs Granny Square Style – Paula Matos – http://www.elealinda-design.com

Flower Basket Decor for Easter Eggs – Smolina Yana – lunapatterns@gmail.com

Yarns used: Hobbii Rainbow 8/4 100% cotton and Scheepjes Catona 100% mercerized cotton

Flowers!

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Firstly I’d like to thank all of you for reading my first ever blog post and for those that have signed up to it I’m hoping you will enjoy reading this the second one.

In the UK, this Sunday is mothering Sunday. Well I don’t know about you guys but it gets harder every year to come up with something different, special or unique to give to my mother. This year it’s been even harder as she lives in a care home and has dementia and with the awful year we’ve had of lockdowns etc it has taken its toll, the lack of visits has resulted in her becoming more detached and her memory failing has meant she doesn’t always know who I am, her deafness also doesn’t help.

So I decided on flowers – never having crocheted flowers before I spent a few days looking at patterns and checking what yarn I had in my stash. I finally decided on roses, daisies, forget me nots (the flower for Dementia) and cherry blossom. Oh, I also made a couple of pansies, using the wonderful pattern by Anna Nikipirowicz, for my mother in laws mother’s day gift. All the flowers and leaves have been made using 100% cotton yarn – Hobbii Rainbow 8/4 and Cotton Kings 8/4. I have to say I have enjoyed making the flowers and a mix of leaves but do not think this is going to be my thing!

Having embarked on making all these pretty flowers I’m sure you are asking what I had planned to do with them – well I’m afraid I went a bit obvious and cliche and made heart wreaths. Actually, I purchased willow and vine heart shaped wreaths from Hobbycraft and then attached the flowers to them using my trusty hot glue gun. I’m really happy with the results. Hopefully I can work out how to insert some photos.

  • Heart Vine Wreath
  • Heart Willow Wreath
First close contact visit in 12months

I was allowed to visit my mother today and touch her! I had to have a lateral flow test done and once the results were in (30mins) I was dressed up in a wrap around plastic apron, gloves and the inevitable face mask – this makes it all very difficult to communicate and I’m not sure she really knew it was me but she did like the heart wreath, stating it was pretty and even smiling.

So my job is done, another mother’s day, albeit a couple of days early, celebrated. My husband will gift the willow version, which has the pansies on, to his mother on mothering Sunday.

Now to move on to Easter decorations!

Do you put up Easter decorations? If you do, what type of thing? Is it all about the egg, the chicken or the bunny? Do you go completely over the top or just a subtle nod to Easter? If you want to share any thoughts please leave a comment. I’ve got lots of ideas whether I will achieve what I have planned is another matter. You will have noticed I’m not giving too much away this is so I have something to write about next time!

There I’ve said it – Next time – yes I am going to keep on blogging, I just hope you will continue reading.

 For all the mums out there I wish you a wonderful Mothers Day on Sunday, a very different one this year, sadly.

Bye for now.

Patterns: Cherry Blossom – https://intheyarngarden.com,  Forget me not – https://sumoftheirstories (I adapted this pattern), Daisy and Rose are a mish mash of patterns to get a look I liked.