It's no secret that we love embroidery and needlepoint around here, so with Easter egg season upon us, we thought we'd try embroidering some eggs! 

Sounds impossibly cuckoo, we know, but inspired by Ukranian artist Inna Forostyuk's stitched eggs, we just had to give this a try.

And you know what? It works!! We recently found ourselves stitching up some Easter eggs that we think are pretty darn neat. These are made with real chicken eggs and real embroidery worked right on to the shell.

Want to see the secret to making these impossible-seeming beauties?

Cutting The Shells

The secret method we came up with to these embroidered Easter eggs is... cutting a hole in the back of the egg to work the stitches through! To do this, we used a Dremel tool (which, if you don't have one, is a very handy tool for crafters!) Using a small diamond cutting wheel attachment, just cut a "slice" off the side of the egg, which will create an oval shape. It may seem like the egg shell would just shatter into pieces, but it actually cuts really well with the sharp blade of this tool! 

(However, the egg contents do tend to splatter during this process, so we suggest cutting over a sink!)

If you want, you can save the sliced-off shell piece and glue it back on later, covering the glued seam area with some thin trim or cord. We didn't bother with this step however; we just display the eggs nestled in a bowl full of easter grass, so you never see the back anyways!

Drilling The Holes

Next, you'll drill holes into the eggshell, to create a "canvas" for working the embroidery. To do this, determine the pattern you'd like to create and mark the egg with pencil wherever you want to create a hole. Place a tiny drill bit on your Dremel tool, and gently drill away. Believe it or not, it's pretty easy to drill the holes and the shells really don't crack all that often! 

That said, it's definitely a good idea to have extra eggs on hand, as some breaking and cracking is inevitable! :) 

Adding The Stitches

And finally, it's time to stitch! This is the easy part. To add the embroidery to your eggs, thread a length of embroidery floss onto a tapestry needle and knot one end of the floss. Begin by bringing the needle through the back of the egg, then simply stitch in and out of the pre-drilled holes to create your design.

When you're done stitching, lots of threads will be visible on the back/inside the egg -- and the front will be mind-bendingly magical!!! 

If you make this project, we'd love to see how it turns out! Share your pics and tag us @brooklyncraftcompany and #brooklyncraftcompany so we can check 'em out!