Lenka's Way of LaceSpring Chickens and Eggs
Posted on April 2, 2025
April 2, 2025
Spring has arrived and I feel like celebrating… sprouting, growing and blooming with plants, chirping and singing with birds, building nests and taking care of eggs… Chicken eggs in particular!
It must be my Slavic roots drawing me back to spring festivals of pagan tribes. In their spring rites, the eggs symbolized fertility, new life and abundance. Tradition of decorating eggs survived from ancient times through successive generations of girls who learned the delicate art from their mothers and grandmothers. Every region has a specific method – wax painting or resist dying, scratching, straw applications, perforating, and even wire wrapping – and there are as many original patterns as there are girls. Each saves the best egg for a boy that is close to her heart.
I think that’s one of the reason why this tradition is still alive. Love is perpetual!
Of course, I couldn’t resist the idea of decorating eggs with wire lace, bobbin and needle, and both techniques worked out beautifully. The small scale designs are fun to make for beginners and experienced lacemakers alike. I believe that Spring and Easter decorations are more meaningful when they are made by hand, especially when they are intended for special gift giving.
My favourite pattern is the Chicken Egg Stand because it holds a lot of creative potential for egg variations. While the stand remains the same, its content changes the overall decorative effect.
Every year my lace chickens are curious how their eggs will look like as we search in the garden to see what we find. This year it’s violas! So many self seeded all over the place and the tiny plants fit perfectly into hollow egg shells. Carefully transplanted, they look very cute in their miniature pots, sitting in the Chicken bases. It is fun to water them daily and wait for the flowers to open. What colours are they going to be?
One Chicken, a dark brown Buckeye, carries an oregano seedling for my friend’s new herb patch. For good luck!
When the plants outgrow their temporary home they will be transferred to the outside pots or beds. The egg shells crushed to small pieces will released calcium carbonate and enrich the soil with essential elements. The plants will grow and blossom all summer long. Seedlings that won’t get transplanted will be composted, so there will be no waste. Mother Nature will be pleased.
The lace chickens will then return to their envelope to rest until next year. Unlike my other Spring/Easter decorations they store flat, taking up hardly any space.
I am so glad to have them, we enjoy each other’s company during all lovely festivities, spring after spring!
Over the years, I designed more lace egg decorations, mostly as workshop projects, and I see potential for many more.
But sometimes I feel that my “eggthusiasm” is a bit displaced. After all, I have lived in a different part of the world for a long time. Maybe I should start to think about lacy Easter Bunnies 🙂
Cheers to all creative spring ideas, wherever and however they manifest!
Lenka
Lace well done…
Posted on June 3, 2015
Season wrap-up wire lace workshop is coming on Saturday, June 27, 2015. It will harness the fresh summer energy to finish projects we started in previous workshops, to improve, strengthen and grow our skills and most of all, to release the creative potential locked in lace. Bring your unfinished projects in wire bobbin or needle lace with your questions about techniques and finishing, bring your finished projects to show and share with others, and of course, bring your ideas for future lace designs. Be ready for learning, brainstorming and fun!
Detailed information and registration
Spring Growth – Leaves, leaves and more leaves
Posted on April 8, 2015
April workshop follows the spring theme with leaf motif. Leaves have a special place in lace design. They are bold, prominent and quite beautiful. In fibre lace, the leaf tallies can be difficult to master, and because of that, they are often feared by new lacemakers. Wire medium is quite different, though, and suits perfectly to successful leaf-making. Exploring foliage in wire lace is exciting, because the process is so much easier that negotiating tallies in thread. Lacemakers can relax, have fun and create beautiful leaves of all shapes. In this workshop, instruction will cover three kinds of leaves: plaited leaves, leaf tallies and 3-pair leaves, as well as colour variations in leaf design and implementing leaf design in wearable lace jewellery. With just two pairs of bobbins, lacemakers will create a seedling pendant, and add one more pair to start a vine that can grow into a necklace, bracelet or a garland ornament. This workshop is suitable for beginners, but is also open to experienced lacemakers, especially those who want to overcome lacemaker’s leaf-phobia, and see that they can become happy and prolific leaf growers. Detailed information and registration
Spring Blossoms, followed by Leaves
Posted on March 2, 2015
Registration is open for two upcoming workshops – one in needle lace in wire and one in bobbin lace in wire. The first one takes place on vernal equinox, and will be all about spring and blossoms… and love inspired creativity of course! Learn how to make delicate needle lace jewellery with beaded flowers in the workshop that is suitable for complete beginners as well as lacemakers with wire lace experience. The class project will lead students through all steps they need to know to create pendants of their own design – in colour variations of apple, quince or sakura blossoms. These pendants are lovely to wear and even better to share and give in a spirit of spring celebrations…
Spring Blossoms – apples, quinces, sakuras – Needle Lace Jewellery #4
April workshop will follow the spring theme with leaves motif and will be in bobbin lace in wire. Leaves are a prominent design element in bobbin lace and some of them, especially the tallies, can pose challenge to new lacemakers. In wire lace, exploring foliage is exciting, because it is so much easier that negotiating tallies in thread. Lacemakers can have fun and create beautiful leaves of all shapes. In this workshop, focus will be on leaf tallies, plaited leaves and cloth-stitch leaves, that will grow along the way to create a wearable garland.
This workshop is suitable for beginners as well as experienced lacemakers, especially those who want to overcome lacemaker’s leaf-phobia, and see that they can become prolific leaf growers.
Spring growth – leaves. leaves and more leaves! – Bobbin Lace in Wire #3
Lenka's Way of Lace 