Happy Easter with Egg Cups

 I hope everyone who observes Easter has a happy celebration - a time of renewal.

No doubt, you all indulged in some eggs, perhaps chocolate, sugar candy or plain boiled.... in an egg cup. 

Five interesting things to know  about egg cups. 

1. Collecting egg cups is called pocillovy

2. The  earliest egg cup found was a silver one, discovered  in the ruins of Pompeii   after Mt Vesuvius erupted in 79AD - the egg cup may have had BC origins. 

3. The first images of egg cups were spotted in a Turkish mosaic dating from 3AD

4. During the French revolution, King Louis XV was said to have popularised egg cups as French citizens tried to imitate  their king’s ability to “decapitate an egg at a single stroke.”  King Louis often entertained his couriers with his ability to do this  with his  breakfast eggs. 

5.The  famous 'Bunnykins" egg cups are called single "bucket" cups. Other categories of egg cups are single (pedestal) and double . 

What's in the background ? #the100dayproject

Have you wondered how these garden vignettes (#100gardenthreads) begin? 

What's in the background to these creations? 

It literally takes hours some days to audition fabrics for the piece. The technique I use involves small scraps of fabric, cut or torn and then stitched over.  Each day, I look through my stash and try to find the right colour, perhaps a little texture, even a pattern for a particular leaf or flower.

Sometimes, I cannot find the right colour so I often hand colour with inks, dyes, and/or  paint and quite often, with coloured pencils (Prismacolour). 

That isn't really the beginning - I spend a lot of time in the garden looking carefully, cutting samples of leaves, branches, flower stems, and of course photographing the specimens. Indoors , I work from cuttings and photos and drawings because by the time I am ready to interpret a flower, it may not be  still blooming in my garden.  And of course, the birds and other creatures  don't stay around while I stitch their images. 

Day 42 is a good example of the background to a #100gardenthreads creation  - eucalypt leaves. 

Fortunately, they are in abundance all year around in the garden, so it is easy to bring a few inside to work directly from the and try to colour match a fabric. In this case, I chose recycled t -shirt material for the colour and texture, with a few leaves cut from  silk screened and hand dyed fabrics and doilies to add the variety of tones.  I also did some quick sketches for for composition and cut a few leaf templates to try them out for size. Then the  free motion stitching  - it is really the least creative part of the process. This is done on my trusty Bernina sewing machine #550, with feed dogs lowered, and all going well, it is the quickest  part of the creation. 

 

Materials : cotton fabric, recycled stretch fabric, doilies, thread, coloured pencils. 

Techniques : free motion stitching, hand colouring, raw edge applique 

 

#the100dayproject Days 37 -41

 

#100garden threads  Days 37-41 This scroll features a miniature rose, a native hibiscus, jade plant and osteospermum. 

Materials: cotton fabric,  various fabric scraps, coloured pencils,  sewing thread

Techniques: free motion machine stitching, hand stitching, raw edge applique, hand colouring/dyeing. 

#the100dayproject - days 33 - 35

 

#100gardenthreads 

Days 33,34 & 35 ... inspired by my herb garden 

Materials _ assorted cotton fabric scraps; coloured pencils, machine thread 

Techniques: stitching by machine and hand;  hand colouring/drawing; applique 

#the100dayproject - days 31 & 32

 #100gardenthreads Days 31 & 32 

 Herb Garden 

Materials : cotton scraps, machine threads, coloured pencils 

Techniques: applique, fabric collage, machine and hand stitching, hand colouring.