Drop Pull eggs!

Celena: I have always wanted to try my hand at an egg decorating technique known as "drop-pull" and I finally got the chance! My favorite pysanky supplier started carrying stuff for it recently, plus I was lucky enough to already have some key items so I got started right away.

The idea is you have a hotplate type situation with multiple pots of different colored wax. Originally these little pots were actually a muffin tin which was probably heated up over fire or on an old stove and probably needed to be reheated throughout the process. Modern technology has brought us wonderful electric batik tools however so that's not necessary anymore. One modern change that's not so good is that you used to be able to use crayons for this, however, they're mostly made with soy wax now which doesn't stick to eggs so much. *sigh*

You may notice the small tool laying near the wax pots- this is a tool I purchased a long time ago and have used as a paper embosser along with die cut metal stencils which is a great technique. Of course after 10 or so of your 75 wedding invitations you get a little less enamored with it- I speak from personal experience, can you tell? :)

Anywho, I thought that I was going to use a straight pin stuck into a pencil, which is what the old-school drop-pullers use and what I pseudo-jerry-rigged for myself at first:

It actually worked better than you may think, I was able to find a small nail with a head and stick it into one of my dowel pins leftover from my bookshelves and got the hang of it pretty quickly. The nail lost heat rapidly though and I kept heating it up with a candle and ending up with black soot in my wax- no fun.

But once I discovered that the new tools being made for this technique are just little metal balls on the end, I decided to ferret out my old embosser.

Definitely different, but pretty great! I am having loads of fun getting into this new technique and they are much quicker to make than a typical pysanka so that's really nice.

It fills me with glee to watch these boxes fill up with jewel colored eggs that I made with my hands. I love each and every one of them. I wish I had all the time in the world to sit perched at my tiny desk full of waxes and dyes and just create one beautiful egg after another.

Pysanky Progress

Celena: My dearest husby Jack just finished making the dye hutch for my egging desk and I couldn't be happier with the finished product! I finally have enough room for all these Colorama dyes,there are over 50!

I am trying to squeeze out all the work time I can to get a good stock built up for our first show which is coming up really soon.

I decided to try a new strategy and am working on three eggs at once all of the same design. I thought my new Texas egg design was a good one to start with and I had a fair amount of the double yolk turkey eggs that I like to use for it. Turkey eggs come with dark brown speckles all over them so they require a bit of hand-sanding before they are suitable for dyeing. Even with thorough sanding they keep a slightly speckled appearance and I think it complements the classic Texas feel that I am striving for with this particular design.

I used SO many different shades of yellow for these roses, I can't wait to melt off the wax and see how they turn out! That is still my absolute favorite part of writing pysanky, melting all the wax off at the end by hand with a candle and slowly revealing the intricate colors beneath.

I still need to complete the blubonnets, some red striping, the navy background for those stars and a pale blue around the roses.

Here's hoping my son's nap remains long like it was today! :)