My head wants to fill this post with egg puns ... it was EGG-cellent. It went EGG-actly as I thought it would. It was EGG-citing.
Instead I felt EGG-nored when I wanted help, and YOLK-gotta-be-kidding-me-now when I wanted a moment to breathe.
The topic was learning how to create Pysanki Eggs at church last week. The story begins at church last summer. As we climb out of the pandemic places are realizing we have become disconnected as a society. Many have drawn themselves into tight cocoons only allowing close family and friends to enter. We've forgotten how to socialize. Meanwhile any day now the church will begin a construction project that will shut down the main fellowship room for a few weeks/months, you know how construction goes. They brought back a fundraiser that had worked about a decade earlier: Frolics.
The way frolics work is someone volunteers to run a group activity (pasta making, woodworking, pool party, BBQ, bead making, and yes, making pysanki eggs). They donate all expenses associated with the project and charge a fee to each participant. The church receives the fee as a donation. The participant receives the experience.
The way the timing happened, most frolics took place in September, the traditional start of the year for people with children. The few that happened in August or October either did not appeal, or filled too quickly. As the frolics were sold in late May and early June I was still trying to decide how long I would be away Down Under. I probably could have attended a couple of more frolics, but I only signed up for the one I knew I could make. The one that would take place at the end of February.
Traditionally Ukrainians make these fancy eggs Palm Sunday weekend. I'm not sure why the date in February was chosen (this year Palm Sunday is March 24). but it was. As we got closer we were told there is a waitlist. If we gave up our slot, someone else would fill it. If an offer had been made to refund the $35 fee, I probably would have taken them up on it even though it is a fundraiser.
Eight of us sat around a table. EGGS-amples (sorry, couldn't resist) were shared. The eight of us thought they were EGGS-eptionally complicated. The three people teaching the class assured us they were simple. Just choose one from the hundreds of samples, and make your decision lickety-split so they can start teaching the technique.
I got off to the wrong start with the class. I was a few minutes late, but arrived just in time for the pastor to open the side door as a pedestrian I use, so I considered that a win.
As soon as I saw five of the seven people set up their stations with candlestick holders and a rag, I realized I didn't finish reading the instructions. I got so hung up on a short, narrow candle, I couldn't process the rest of the instructions. As I was apologizing to the organizer for not following the instructions, he pointed out everyone else got it correctly, so it wasn't his fault -- which is EGGS-actly what I was trying to say to him.
Then I sat down in an empty seat at the head of the table that seemed to belong to the leader (there was a book at the spot), so I moved to the other end. Immediately a a mother and daughter arrived wanting to sit next to each other, so when I realized the leader wasn't going to sit down, I took my original seat.
Flustered much?
Either they did not explain well, or I did not understand, but the instructions seemed to be even more complicated until the end when I saw the final product.
Step one: put wax on everything you don't want to be dyed.
No wait, step one is choose the design you want to make. They are limitless. This one is easy. No, try this one. Don't touch the egg. Wear a glove. Don't wear a glove. Use a tissue. Don't use a tissue. Why haven't you chosen your design yet?
Back to step one: put wax on everything you don't want to be dyed.
Draw thin lines on it. No, that's too thick.
Sketch out your design with a pencil, but don't ever erase it. I don't use a pencil, just freehand it. Don't you know what design you want? I think of one side as the practice side, you can only see one side at a time. It's okay if they don't match. The sides are supposed to match.
Are you finished yet?
Oh, you dropped a glob of wax where you didn't want it. Too bad, it is part of the design now. The charm is in the imperfections. Later as we burned the wax off after dying them, I wondered why we couldn't have just melted those imperfections off?
Add more design. That's too plain. A lot of people add swirls. Why did you add swirls? That looks great! (Said to the people on other side of me.) Hmm. (Said to me.)
Amazing how everyone is given the same example and they all turn out differently.
Isn't this relaxing? It is just like a Zen experience (said by another participant). I made hundreds when my child got married (said by one of the teachers).
Step 2: dying the eggs. I wish I took a picture of the table with all the dyes on it.
Are you ready to dip it? Use the lightest color first. Each additional level gets darker. Use three different dyes. Which one do you want? There are at least a dozen different colors ranging from yellow to light blue to dark blue to royal blue to purple to pink to red to gold to orange to green to ... I don't know what else because the three leaders were alternating telling me to choose a color. Dip it in vinegar first. Why? To rinse it off to make it easier to hold the dye. Teacher two: I've never done that.
What colors do you want it to be in the end? How do you want it to look? Why haven't you chosen a color?
Okay, what about pink and blue?
That sounds good. The pink is very dark, so dip it quickly. Here, I'll do it. Oh, look it is really dark. You shouldn't have chosen that color first. Let's pat it. Now it looks uneven. Let's rinse it off. There! That looks a lot better!
Head spinning having three different people give three vastly different opinions simultaneously. No chance to shout -- no, I don't want a dark pink, I want to choose a different color.
Step 4: put dye on the sections you want to stay pink.
No, you want more pink on it -- even though someone else convinced me it was a hideous color, more raspberry than pink.
Are you done yet? Ready to dye the second color? What color do you want? That color won't turn out so well on top of that pink, you should have chosen a lighter/different color.
I really like that person's blue. I think I'll do that one! (There were three different shades of blue.) That won't turn out the same because you already dyed the egg pink. (Internally I am hearing: you should have thought this through better before rushing into that hideous shade of pink. Not what was said, but what my head and heart both heard.)
Step 5: after dying, melt the wax off the egg.
It is at this stage I started to second guess all of my design and color decisions. To the teachers, they just shrugged and said that is part of the learning process.
Step 6: getting the yolk out of the egg.
Here is where the teachers debating the most: one does it before decorating, the other two at the end. If you do it up front, the yolk can be saved and used for baking, which I think is the reason the baker in the group opted for that option. Doing it at the end make the egg less fragile during the decorating stage.
Someone poked the first hole out (the harder one) and told me to poke a hole in the other end, then blow it out. If I had realized I would have to poke a hole in either end, I would not have decorated the ends, even though they did in the example.
Unfortunately as I blew the ends, the dye left the egg and landed on my lips turning them blue. Someone quipped that would make me sick -- which I suspect was a joke, but having seeing Radium Girls the day before at Rider University, it didn't feel like a joke. After that, they blew out the yolk for the other seven people (they had blown out the yolk for the first three, then thought it was safe to let me do my own, they realized it wasn't and finished for the others.)
No matter how you do it, it is messy!
If you skip this stage, 90% of the time the yolk just dries on its own. The other 10% of the time, though, the egg explodes everywhere -- including all over your walls -- and smells terribly.
As we wrapped up, were were offered a kit for $10 (which includes a kistka, wax, six different dyes) so we could make more on our own. I passed. I knew there was very little possibility that I would sit still and do this again. Alone. Doing it with a friend would involve needing another kistka.
Things I learned towards the end:
- The person who made hundreds says it takes her 4-5 hours to make each masterpiece. Our class was only three hours long.
- They make kistkas in three different sizes: from very narrow to wider. I could have made wider lines, which I think would have appealed to me.
- There is more than one way to do things and end up with similar results.
- There are ways to improve upon the official way to do it. Case in point ... factories where a lot of pysanki eggs are made put them in the oven to melt the wax off. The one teacher uses a blow torch (was he kidding?). Others use a hair dryer. Using a candle method may be the official way, but not the only way.
- It didn't matter if the candle was brand-new or old, or thin or wide, it only matters that you can put the egg and kistka inside the blue part of the flame.
I've thought about how I would change the instruction process.
Before teaching the class, I would have the three people sit down and do it together so they see how their techniques vary. This way they'll spend less time debating between themselves and more time helping us!
I would start with giving people a chance to sketch their design and think about their colors up front. Maybe even have a color chart of what the second color would look like based on the first color. Maybe show step by step what to draw instead of the final product. Once I realized it was like a negative -- cover thee parts you don't want dyed with wax, the process started to click.
These are ones a teacher recently made. He took the class ten years ago, then waited eight years before making another one. Each one is a work of art. He covers his in oil-based polyurethane (if you use water-based polyurethane, the image washes off).
I'm really surprised no one's eggs cracked in the process since at times I felt rushed.
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