The Easter Egg

I woke up this morning to a wonderful treat!  April showers.  It's been very windy this last week, and a cold front rolled in and gave us a little relief from the dry conditions.  Where I live, spring sprang a month ago.  My husband has been mowing down all those precious little purple flowers in the field grass that he calls weeds.  I've stopped grumbling about it, in secret, hoping this bit of rain will bring them back with a vengeance.  We also get tiny groupings of blue flower "weeds" in the front yard each spring and I dare not bring any attention to them.

Time passes so quickly.  I guess I've been on the Bunny Path for three weeks now.  For some reason, as I was dressing a few of my dolls in spring clothing, I began thinking about Easter eggs and the possibilities associated with needle felting them.  And as a Pinterest enthusiast, I began seeing lots of those peep eggs that I had in my basket as a child.  Peep eggs?  Well, this is what we called them.  Today the population of fine bakers and cake decorators call them "panoramic eggs".

My earliest memories of Easter were shopping downtown where my mother would always make a stop at See's Candies.  Each Easter season we would go with her, my brother, sister and I, and at least I would look forward to selecting the sugar peep egg that would go into my basket.  While I loved the wonderful candies inside my basket, I treasured the peep egg for its tiny world inside the window.  I never ate them, but as they're made of sugar, I suppose some people may have.  I guess, eventually, these eggs got tossed, and as I grew up, the baskets stopped, and I never saw the peep eggs again.  This year I discovered that tons of baked goods decorators have been making them and lavishly embellishing them for years now.  Maybe it has to do with nouveau novelty, or the zillions of decorating tips you can purchase for royal icing.  Regardless, I had to buy some.  Of course.  So yes, I've been decorating around the house for three weeks now.

One little novelty I found was a countdown to Easter calendar.  The Vermont Christmas Store carries them in three versions.  One is of Peter Rabbit with eggs around the edges, and then there's this one with bunnies, flowers, eggs and garden critters.  I bought both.  The other one was definitely targeted for children of today.  

And I purchased three papier mache eggs from 32 degrees North.  Papier mache eggs are not new to me.  I'd collect them, display them in a basket each Easter, then over the years, lose them or give them away.  This image of three are not my own, but a lovely sampling.  I also went a bit nuts and bought three Hansa animal reproductions.  A chick, a lamb and a baby duck.  I didn't know anything about these decorative toys, but fell immediately in love with them when I saw an ad for a chick on an FAO Schwarz post.

As I was beginning to decorate and find more items to add to my Easter display table, I was purchasing more wool sheets from The Felt Pod.  I recalled that they sold pre-felted eggs to decorate, so I purchased some after seeing what others have done.  When they arrrived, they were about 2 1/4" on the average, so true chicken egg sized.  I don't know what I was expecting, but the felters that generally needle felt eggs with beautiful designs, make their own egg shapes and they are considerably larger.  Never one to turn away a challenge, I started perusing illustrations by Eulalie for inspiration.

So where did the idea of the Easter egg come from?  There have been stories written about the Easter bunny, but what of the brightly decorated eggs he carries with him from field to pasture, hiding them for children to find?

The egg itself  has for centuries been one of the most important and adaptable symbols in myths and rituals across Europe and Asia.  To the Christians, the egg symbolized new life and purity.  The emergence of the chick from the egg represented the resurrection.  The shape of the egg, symbolic of the stone that rolls away from the tomb.  Early Christians stained eggs red to remember the blood of Christ shed at the crucifixion.

In more practical terms, the egg was a dietary staple of the rich and poor.  As eggs were forbidden during the Lenten season, then allowed once again on Easter, they became a gift.  Eggs have been bartered as a minor source of currency.  As women were generally the ones to look after the eggs laid by the hens, it was a meager source of income for them.

The egg as a gift can be traced as far back as 1290 when

King Edward I purchased 450 eggs to be colored and detailed with gold leaf to be distributed among his royal entourage.  Let us not forget the Faberge eggs of Russia.  In 1885, Alexander III commissioned a fabulously expensive decorated Faberge egg as an Easter gift for his wife.

Before the Reformation, the Church blessed eggs as food after the Lenten prohibition, and this developed into the custom of hard-boiling and decorating eggs as presents for children.

During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, egg-shaped toys were manufactured for Eastertide.  The Victorians gave cardboard and satin covered eggs filled with chocolate and gifts. 

Easter egg hunting began in the 1700's when German 

immigrants brought their Osterhase tradition to Pennsylvania.  The festive tradition quickly spread across the country and the traditional nests of eggs became baskets.  Eventually the game became a treasure hunt and candy, coins and toys could be found.

When we were children, my mother hid our baskets in various places in the house.  A closet, behind a chair, the pantry, anywhere one could be secreted away.  Our small house did not have many hiding places and once the baskets were found, we were allowed one piece an hour before going to church.  Personally, for myself, getting a new Easter outfit was pretty exciting as well.  Since I was child in the 60s, there were shoes, a hat, purse and gloves as well.

It's funny, but I never credit any holiday above the glory of Christmas, yet I do enjoy Easter for springtime and the joyful imagery and decorations associated with it.  

The first egg I tried needle felting was one of a dancing baby duckling.  I worked from Eulalie's illustrations in both The Bumper Book and her Nursery Rhymes book.  I was immediately encouraged to see how nicely a bit of blue wool could interpret into a sunny day with soft clouds.  

I chose a little farmhouse to place on the horizon line, then needle felted the main character in the "foreground".  On the backside of the egg, some kind of spring flower would do.  Working this small, you can't get a lot of detail, which by nature I labor at, so I had to keep the designs as simple as possible.  I call this watercolor in wool.  The backside of the duckling shows a field of poppies.

The second egg I did was of the Easter bunny from The Bumper Book's story of the Easter bunny.  I've loved the illustrations of this story in particular, since the artist created an Easter egg hunt illustration that is well known and beloved.

The Easter bunny was more difficult to do.  Trying to create happy eyes and a joyful smile with just black wool was a challenge.  When the needle is larger than the piece of wool you're working with, it gets tricky.  

On the back of this egg, I felted a daffodil amidst tiny white "weeds".  The clouds you see are simply the white wool of the egg.  Artists call this drawing or painting in the negative space.  The back of this egg may be my favorite of the egg areas I needle felted.

I was placing these eggs for display in small nursery planters filled with Easter basket grass.  Of course, doing so, you'd lose seeing the bottom of the egg, but I guess a curious passerby could always lift it out to have a better look!

The last one in this style became Mary's lamb.  I had this one last small nursery planter of Mother Goose.  As I was looking through Eulalie's version of the book, I saw this adorable little lamb and decide he would do.  In the book he was standing, but I couldn't get the entire image (with enough detail) on the egg, so I felted him sitting.  He wears a pink ribbon around his neck and a small bell hangs from the ribbon for Mary to find him quickly.

The house I chose to felt on the horizon of this one was lovely in illustration, but very difficult to render in wool this small.  Its there, but very much a background.  Neither of these photos show the house as I have other images to share.  

On the back of this one, I needle felted a couple of tulips.  In the illustration, there was a row of tulips, daffodils and some sort of daisy in front of a fence.  

I had a difficult time with this lamb.  There were a lot of details I had to leave out and still produce an image of a sweet lamb.  The last bit, the last touch was that of the eyelashes.  Maybe one wee strand of wool was used for them.  That was it!  I wasn't going to do any more.  Yet I had five more eggs in the bag.  Then I had an idea.

The back side of Mary's Lamb in the Mother Goose nursery planter.

After all this fuss about purchasing very expensive bakery sugar peep eggs, I decided to try making one myself with one of the eggs I had left.  Oh, I tried it early on by cutting one in half and trying to snip out felted wool, etc., but it was awful.  So I made a Little Faux Peep.

I took one of the small peep eggs I bought and used it as my inspiration.  Instead of digging out wool and trying to make a shell, I tried for the illusion of a peep window.

Knowing that the original was all sugar, candy, it was easier for me to not pay so much attention to detailing a scene, and just play.  I've seen the results of felted "paintings in wool", like a needlepoint canvas, but none done on an egg.  I think we all experiment to some degree.

This little chick sits in a grassy setting with a couple of flowers and one jellybean egg.  To get the faux look of a peep window, I gently felted a smidgen of mixed wools of purple, blue and gray in the background to resemble the shadowed interior of the peep egg.

The back side and top side with faux royal icing flowers.

This year's collection of peep eggs.

The largest one cost me a pretty penny and the medium sized one on the back right was done by the same baker.  These are HEAVY.  Maybe she made the shells thick to support all the flowers on the top?  I don't know.  But these egg shell halves should be about 1/4" thick.  People even make solid ones which must weigh two pounds!

The two eggs in the front are most like the ones I had as a child.  My favorites.  Oh, and they smell so good!  So sweet.  The only reason I bought the blue shelled one in the back middle, is because of the little lamb in it.

People get very creative with these eggs.  Essentially, its 5 cups of sugar, 5 tsp of meringue powder, 6 tsp water.  You can either press the sugar mess into a mold as a shell, or fill it, bake it 20 minutes, then scoop it out.  Royal icing with decorative tips do the rest.

People fill them with plastic figurines, candy, paper images, and of course, royal icing figures.  No, I'm not going to make them myself.  I'd make a mess and give up.  Acquiring all the tips would be expensive and learning how to make the icing flora is an art in itself.  

There was even one person who used a cake mold of a teapot to make a sugar peep egg.  But it's not a peep egg.  Its just a sugar tea pot with a window.  I attached a photo of this below.  Everyone is always trying for something unique and different.  After studying page after page of sugar eggs for days, I'm done looking.  It hurts my eyes.  To me, the real deal are the two small ones I mentioned earlier.  The rest are just unique decorations.  Any mold will do.

I like things in threes and fives, so I did one more peep egg.  This one would have a little bunny in it and a carrot on top with the flowers.

Side view.

Back and top with carrot.

The other side.

I'm done crafting for a while.  Like any new thing I try, if it interests me, I go at it full board until I burn out.  I've reached that point.  What nursery planters I have left are going to the Goodwill.  I messed around with them as they intrigued me.  I have a nice decoration to bring out next St. Patrick's Day.  I have my Gingham dog that sits among my dolls.  I may or may not keep the small nursery planters that hold the eggs I made.  I have no room to store such things.  Should I think about this before I launch into new ventures?  Yes.  I do it all the time, but I love to make things.  I love to try new things.  Its how I play and further my skills.

Since I began this journal posting, we had a thunderstorm with hail.  It quickly passed and the sun came out in a clear sky with cumulous clouds.  In a half hour the earth was dry from the wind.  Spring!

Easter is next Sunday, and I'm going to sit back now and simply enjoy the decorations I put out, the dolls I dressed for spring.  I bought way too much Easter candy this year and have been enjoying it for two weeks!  In moderation of course.  hahahaha  What's next?  A doll project.  Which one?  One of them!

Wishing you a wonderful Eastertide!  With a little imagination, any window can be your own personal peep window into a unique world. 

Love, 

Melissa

Eulalie's Easter Egg Hunt

Large Egg from Pinterest

Large Egg from Pinterest

Large Egg from Pinterest

Just love this!

Faberge Peep

The Teapot Peep

For Alice lovers!

 

"The old Dutch clock it told me so, and that is how I came to know."  When I was a little girl, I was fascinated by all things Dutch.  There were so many little bits of imagery and what-nots to keep my eyes noticing as new ones popped up.  My mother owned a pair of porcelain Dutch shoe earrings, and two jeweled brooches.  One of a boy, and the other of a girl.  These were studded with faux pearls.  My mother bought me a small enameled pin of two Dutch children.  There were wonderful illustrations in children's books of Dutch children.  And windmills!  Tulips!  This faraway country and its beautiful traditional imagery kept my imagination full of wonder.  And, of course, the exotic Chinese imagery fueled my imagination, too.

But more than those, the wonderful books my mother bought us to treasure were as much a part  

of my lap, as the cats who cuddled with me.  The Bumper Book, illustrated by Eulalie Winifred Banks (1895 - 1999), was my favorite.  Eulalie was an English-American illustrator who lived to be 104-years-old.  She began illustrating the children's pages of women's magazines at the age of fourteen while living in England.  By eighteen, she'd illustrated her first children's book, Bobby in Bubbleland.

In 1916, she married RAF captain Arthur Wilson and emigrated with him, first to Canada, then to the United States.  While Arthur worked as a radio engineer, she began illustrating stories, tales and nursery rhymes.  Her specialty was anthropomorphic animals.  The second world war saw her returning with her daughter to England to continue her work illustrating book, postcards and calendars.  During this time she received a special mention from the queen.

After the war she returned to California and continued to

work into her old age.  

Among the stories and poems within The Bumper Book, was a particularly silly one called The Gingham Dog and the Calico Cat.  I think I was more impressed by the imagery than the story, as it was clearly not as gentle as tale as the others.  The original title of this poem by Eugene Field (1850 - 1895) was The Duel.  In his short life, he became known, to his dismay, as The Children's Poet.  Also the author of Winken, Blinken and Nod, I've found his children's poetry to be thought provoking.  As we well know, nursery rhymes of old were commentaries of the times that only adults would appreciate (understand).  Yet, they rhymed, making them easy for our developing minds to enjoy and memorize.  And they were illustrated for a child's delight and so became sentimental and precious to us.  I would love to find out what prompted Field to pen The Duel, and its only in my decidedly wild imagination that it could have been written about an incident 

he witnessed, or innocently sprung from a child's stuffed toys in the nursery. Regardless, the story remains a staple in children's poems from long ago.  There is no sweetening the story, but one can be mollified by the ridiculousness of two stuffed toys going at it.  

When I was poking around, shopping for nursery planters, I came across one of a gingham dog, and that was it.  Had to have it.  Had to do something with it!

I pulled out my minty copy of The Bumper Book and once again poured over the details of Eulalie's charming illustrations.  I also poked around on Pinterest for other illustrations and found a surprising number of ways this poem was enjoyed in the past.  From story books, to greeting cards, to patterns for your own stuffed toys. Inspired by it all, I set out to create my own version through the gingham dog planter I'd purchased.

You work with what you have, and in this case, it was a burgundy red and white gingham doggy with a dark blue bow around its neck.  I think one of the greatest challenges I had with this piece was in creating pleasing colors around this planter. As it would be displayed somewhere among my dolls, I chose to celebrate Eulalie's illustrations, while making the imagery my own.  

It isn't easy translating watercolors to wool.  Possibly even more difficult than the doll costuming I create from illustrations.  Also, with every stitch hand sewn, and with the amount of detail I add, it becomes seriously tedious work.  At times I could only work on each piece for an hour at a time.  And, this is okay, because I do these things as "something to do".  Something to pick up and work on when I'm playing.  

I began with the cat.  She is made from The Felt Pod's printed felted wools.  I bought several colors for future uses, and the blue seemed to blend best with the overall theme.  While browsing through Pinterest, I found a vintage pattern for a gingham dog and calico cat.  I'd included them in this journaling for your pleasure and use.  

While deciding what fabric to use for the cat, I was first looking at vintage cotton floral fabrics.  "Calico", to me, was always a tiny floral print.  So I went online to research a bit, as I really wanted to create each character out of wool felt.  What I discovered, surprised me.

Calico fabric is a plain-woven textile, made from half-processed and unbleached cotton fibers.  It's a coarse, rough fabric, but not as sturdy as denim, nor as fine as muslin.  Calico is generally very cheap due to its unfinished nature.  The printing has nothing to do with the nature of the fabric.  So, a polka-dot could just as easily be calico in nature as a floral.  Done.

Snipping out little bits of wool felt for the kitty's eyes and nose were just the beginning of the effort.  These, I'd dab a bit on glue on to fasten to the toy, then carefully stitched them on at the edges.  Each color, each piece of wool is hand-stitched on.

The China plate was next.  I used the color theme and design from Eulalie's drawing, a mix between both sides of the illustrated poem.  Little mountains, a lake, green hillsides, the red walking bridge, and the figure carrying a bundle of wood.  I included two flying birds into this tiny piece.

The fun was in creating the face.  "Oh no!", is the expression and I added arms raised in surprise.  To make it more my own, I added jumping legs with traditional Chinse slippers on the feet. 

This piece had me looking at vintage China plates to see where Eulalie may have gotten her ideas.  Some are quite beautiful.

Oh, were I to live in a castle!  I'd have room after room of collectibles, and among them, a cabinet of beautifully painted plates.

Then the old Dutch clock was made.  He was no doubt the most difficult to do as I embroided his Delft painting all freehand.  You simply cannot draw on wool, and certainly not this tiny.  The old Dutch clock measures 2 3/4" x 2 1/4".  The most difficulty was in making tiny embroidered circles both in the plate's eyes and mouth, as well as the numbers like 8.  Certainly I could have used one embroidery thread rather than two, but the result would not have been as visible and bright.  

I began with cutting out the white shape of the clouds and land, stitched that onto the blue of Delft painting, then embroidered the images of the Dutch girl tending the goose and the windmill. Trust me, there was a lot of pulling out stitches and redoing in all these pieces.

The old Dutch clock is a gear driven clock with weighted pull chains and pendulum.  All of this all intrigued me further so I had to do some studying up on clock works.  My sister had a cuckoo clock with weighted pine cones on chains that used to fascinate me as a child.  The little German people in their home made of timber, with painted details of flowers.  sigh  Anyway, I couldn't find more on the subject than that the weights help the movement of the hands in the clockworks.  Clocks are another fascination for me.  I need that castle!

Legs on the clock would not work since he has his pendulum and weighted pine cones beneath him.  Sometimes I truly wish I wasn't so detail oriented, but then the work would not be "mine".

Finally, I attached the China plate around the dog with a chain, and strung bead lettering of "gingham" and "calico" around his front to back.  One other addition was that of the tablecloth. I needed something to frill and fill the planter's hole and created a

tablecloth from scalloped lace.  This lace was pleated, sewn, then pinned into the floral block I cut down to size and pressed into the dog to assemble the characters.  

Floral block is that green stuff that florists use in floral arrangements.  It holds water well and keeps the stems firmly upright. I'd tried using the crinkle paper filler first.  Then tried Styrofoam pieces stuffed into the center.  Nothing held the characters properly.  I don't know what made me think of floral blocks, but they work and are the best.

I hope you've enjoyed this journal on the creative process of this piece.  I've added lots of imagery below of different angles of the nursery planter, other Dutch clocks, and two beautiful China plates, and more.  Inspiration, amusement and historical enjoyment.

My thoughts turn to Easter now, and springtime.  I'm done with filling these planters for a while.  They take an extraordinary amount of time, and I miss sewing for dolls.  I've already been decorating for Easter and some of my dolls are dressed for the holiday.  Holidays come and go so quickly and I hope to enjoy them fully, and for as long as I can.

Happy springtime wishes, Melissa  

Close up detail

Close up detail

From The Tall Book of Make-Believe

From another book Eulalie illustrated

Eulalie Winifred Banks (19895 - 1999)