Apaļš
kā pūpols, vesels kā rutks! Slimībā ārā, veselība iekšā!
On
Palm Sunday Latvians celebrate pūpolu svētdiena.
One of the most common traditions on this day is for the first person awake to
cut some branches from the pussy willow and use them to wake the rest of the
household while wishing them to be “round as a pussy willow, healthy as a
turnip.” I go into some detail about the history behind this here, and for more traditional skaitāmpanti and customs, this article from
mammamuntetiem.lv might come in handy.
We had
company over last week to help with the Easter egg coloring. Using all natural
materials and the traditional methods, we were quite successful with both the
onion skin and the red cabbage eggs. Although we generally followed the steps I
list in my previous articles about technique (Œufs blancs for
the onion skin method and Natural Easter eggs for the red cabbage method), we noticed some differences
in shade and definition.
Utilizing
old nylons instead of cheese cloth and foregoing the “onion skin nest” produced
a much darker brown and more definitive shapes. Make sure to use water to “adhere”
your leaves and grasses to the egg before slipping them into the nylon.
Although
the eggs nested in onion skins and then wrapped in cheese cloth or nylons
resulted in lighter shades of brown, the outcome was a more dappled, multi-hued
work of art.
I had
difficulties getting the same vibrant blue I had achieved previous years using
red cabbage, but letting them sit in the dye bath overnight brought about this
beautiful color.
My
second batch of cabbage eggs were just a robin egg blue, but they are
delicate-looking and unique nonetheless. I have to wonder if I had more water
(and therefore a more diluted solution) than previous years, or if the red
cabbage I bought was just less vivid…
With visitors coming to Greenville, Easter next weekend and some extremely energetic boys, I have a lot of excitement to look forward to. I hope
you have a wonderful week, and good luck with your Easter preparations!
Looking good Liene! Onion skins are fantastic for egg colouring but I didn't know about the red cabbage...great idea! Priecigus Lieldienans Jus visiem!
ReplyDeletePaldies Dzintra! Priecīgas Lieldienas Jums visiem arī!
DeleteWhoa, those are some stunning dye jobs! Just beautiful! BTW, I got my fill of daffodils here in DC this weekend. Spring is finally here (as I'm trying to ignore the weather forecast for tomorrow - which promises "multiple seasons in one day" including temperatures from the 70s all the way down into possibly the 30s. Not cool, weather gods, not cool.
ReplyDeleteWe had a day of 90+ last week and now thunderstorms... definitely spring in the south! At least the cherry blossoms are in full bloom in DC, right?
DeleteThe downtown trees were at peak bloom over the weekend. Yesterday's rain, wind and snow (yes, we had some snow and sleet last night!) certainly hastened their demise... But now looking forward to tulips!
DeleteSkaistas olas! Much better than the ones that we did at latviešu skola here in Indy Friday night. For some reason we just can't get our eggs dark enough. I use food coloring for our eggs here at home though and through finding a good 'recipe' on Pinterest have had some awesome results with that! I've wanted to try the red/purple cabbage method but I have heard it works better if you let the eggs sit in the dye bath at least overnight in your fridge.
ReplyDeleteLiene, to get the onion skin eggs really dark you need a lot of onion skins, and like I wrote above use old nylons to hold them together. As far as the red cabbage, the light blue ones were from an overnight bath while the dark ones were same day... go figure!
DeleteSuper skaistas olas! Mums arī būs jākrāso - vismaz dažas ko nest pie vecmammas svētdien!
ReplyDeletePaldies! Labu veiksmi krāsošanā!
DeleteThey're so beautiful Liene! I colours from the naturally dyed eggs are stunning...Have a wonderful week! Mel x
ReplyDeleteThanks Mel. I prefer the natural dyes to the artificial in all aspects, especially ease of handling. My one experience with real dye ended with red and blue hands, shirt and inedible eggs... not the Easter experience I was looking for!
Delete