Lithuanian Easter Eggs

Since next weekend is Easter, I thought I'd post a little post about the Lithuanian way of making Easter Eggs - it's completely different than anything you're likely to have seen, so here goes.

What you do is, gather all kinds of small plants, leaves, flowers, get some rice, buckwheat, any other grains you might want, onion skins, you can try just about anything you want. You are going to use them to make colors and patterns on the eggs. Cut the legs off an old (or new, if you want) pair of nylons. Roll the leg up so you can easily get to the bottom (the toes). In the bottom, place some of the objects you've gathered, then place the raw egg on top of them. Place some more things around and on top of the egg, and then twist the nylons off tightly around the egg so that it mostly stays in place against the egg. Now, place another egg in the nylons on top of the other, and repeat. Make sure each time that you twist off the nylons very tightly so the stuff you placed around the egg stays there. Here's our friend Deimantė to demonstrate:



You can see how she's placed some leaves and grains and onion skins around the eggs in the nylons. Once you have filled up the leg of the nylons, tie it off at the top, and then boil the whole thing in a pot of dye until the eggs are done. If you find a natural, food-safe dye, you can eat them afterwards, otherwise they will be just for decoration. The things you put in with the eggs will not only create patterns on the eggs, but will lend their own colors as well, and you will end up with eggs that look something like this:



Note - none of the eggs were boiled in more than one color, all the multiplicity of colors you see is from the items placed in the nylons with the eggs. You can see the patterns of the onion skins and the rice on some of those eggs.



and the way it comes out when you get a leaf or a flower just right in the nylons to create a beautiful pattern on the egg.

you can try brown and white eggs too, as they will each come out differently.

If you have any questions or you want to try this on your own, feel free to write and ask any questions or whatever :) cheers!

Hopefully we'll post our pictures of this year's eggs once we've done them.