It’s the start of the Easter school/college holidays today, so where has all the sunshine gone?! It’s grey and cold and all the spring promise has dissolved into gloomy drizzle. Ah well, my colourful crochet projects can always be relied on to cheer the place up. This week I’ve been playing with sock yarn and making a load of tiny little eggs for my Easter decorations.

I used the pattern I featured in this post with a 3mm hook and various oddments of 4 ply to create micro eggs, one step smaller than the mini eggs. Then I made a half dozen with a 2mm hook and ended up with nano eggs. Now at first glance these eggs don’t look all that small next to those balls of wool.

This picture might explain why!

You see, all is not what it seems. Instead of the usual 50 gram or 100 gram balls of yarn these are a dinky 10 grams each. How cute is that?! I just couldn’t resist them, though I’m sure this is not the most cost effective way to buy yarn, I’m a total sucker for anything in miniature so they simply had to come home with me once I’d spotted them. Normally it’s a case of the more the merrier when it comes to yarn but I made an exception for these. They’re not for crocheting with, just for looking at… It’s the little things that make you happy 🙂

I made all these eggs out of previous sock project leftovers.

I love the randomness that the variegated yarn gives them. They were such fun to crochet as there was an air of mystery as to how each one would turn out.

A few years ago these two nests were found in my mum and dad’s garden, blown out of the trees by a gale, thankfully way past the nesting season. I love how they are so different but both equally beautifully made. I think the nest on the left may be a wren’s nest but I’ve got no idea about the maker of the other one. If anyone knows which particular species made each nest, please tell me. I’d love to know!

Such remarkable feats of construction with just a little beak to work with! They always amaze me every time I get them out to have a look at them.

They made very handy photo props for my crocheted eggs which, I think, turned out to be pretty much the right size for them. These nests are so delicate now, I like to keep them mostly tucked away for safe keeping.

I had a go at making my own nest out of yarn scraps, but it’s a bit of a poor effort by comparison. Pretty colours though!

Then I made a sturdier version, still not as good as the real thing but a lovely way to show off a clutch of mini eggs. I’m planning on making several of these as place settings for my Easter Sunday lunch table.

I cheated and used a ready made miniature grapevine wreath about 3 inches across, then just added some natural rafia, a few paper flowers and, of course, the crocheted eggs. Sweet!

Inspired by my success with the crocheted eggs I fancied having a go at dying the real thing. Spurred into action by all these beautiful pictures on Pinterest, I boiled my eggs, lovingly wrapped them in paper towels, doused them in food colouring and waited for the magic to be revealed.

Well, I hate to disappoint you all, but it didn’t exactly work out. In fact the results were so unspectacular that I didn’t even bother to take a photo. Just imagine half a dozen standard brown hens eggs…. and, well,  that pretty much sums up the results! The only food colouring I had was the gel type and it just didn’t cut the mustard. I had a sneaky feeling this wouldn’t be the visual treat I was hoping for when my hands weren’t even stained after all that rolling and wrapping.

The paper towels turned out pretty good though. Like kaleidoscopic cosmic nebulae.

Such a shame that gorgeous marbling didn’t transfer to the eggs. Not to be defeated, I’ve been back to Pinterest and seen some great ideas for dying eggs with natural ingredients like red cabbage and blueberries so I’m going to invest in some white goose eggs (white hens eggs seem to be as rare as hen’s teeth here in the UK) and give the egg dying another go.

So that’s my story of Easter crafts dabbling. I tried in vain to get my boys to join in with my eggscapades (sorry, there has to be at least one egg pun in here somewhere), but apparently it’s not the sort of thing that teenage boys are into these days.

Makes me feel a bit nostalgic for those other days, a few years back, when they loved getting involved in all my mad schemes. Here’s one that came to mind while I was reminiscing. A whole bunch of papier mache chick pinatas, filled with sweets and confetti that we all made together for a kids party we had. Each child took one home with them to smash open on Easter day.

The paper plate daffodils were fun to make too. Good times, but only natural for the boys to grow up and move on. I, on the other hand, have no intention of growing out of these things. Where’s my apron… I’ve got a date with a pan full of onion skins and beetroots. (If I get better results with the next batch of eggs I’ll be back to share with you all!)

Bye for now, and enjoy your weekend 🙂