Silk Dyed Easter Egg Tutorial

Maybe it's a stretch to call this a tutorial, as I've left out a couple pictures and I'm basically just repeating exactly what Martha Stewart tells you to do here. So for truly well written and comprehensive directions, please see Ms. Stewart. To check out my experience with the silk dyed eggs, read on!

So a while back, in preparation for this project, I picked up some silk ties from Goodwill. I shot for bright colors and really wrestled with myself trying to remember that I was not necessarily looking for the tie that appealed to me the most, but the pattern that was going to look coolest on the eggs. It took me forever to get this straight in my head. I also wasn't sure if I wanted the shinier finishes or the more matte finishes, so I got a little of both.

So on Saturday afternoon I got all the stuff out and me and Willie commenced to dying eggs. First you wrap your little (raw) egg in a square of the silk, right side facing the egg. Then around that you wrap a square of white cotton (cut up sheet or pillowcase or what have you). Secure with a twist tie and plunk it in the empty pot. Note: I was a bit disappointed as Willie was not able to be as hands-on as I thought he would with this step - the twist ties are still a bit on the tricky side for his 4 year old fingers. In the end, he seemed to have fun letting me do it and then he got to be the official egg-putter-in-the-potter. Boone supervised and gooed and ate Trader Joes white cheddar pirate's booty puffs:

When all the bundles were safely transferred to the pot, we filled the pan with water to cover the eggs, then added 3 tbsp of white vinegar:

Then we set the eggs to boil for twenty minutes. This was a long time for Willie to wait. I worked on tshirts. He bothered his dad who was trying to watch a very important DVD about coyote hunting. Sigh.

When 20 minutes were up, we took the eggs out and unwrapped them - this should have been my coolest picture, but it was a really bad picture. Sorry.

Then I dried them off and polished them up with a little vegetable oil, and voila!


They turned out pretty cool. My favorite are the red paisley ones in the middle right position. The baseballs are kinda cool too. I'm thinking the ones with matte finishes turned out best. If I do this again I'll go to greater lengths to make sure the silk is in closer contact with the egg. I think some of the other patterns would have looked better if that had been the case. Oh and how cool are the Williams Sonoma egg crate holder things? My awesome neighbor, Jenny, from over at Hank & Hunt, gave those to me last Easter. I heart them very much.