Silk Dyed Easter Eggs

There are hundreds of ways to die the outer shell of eggs, but without lots of artistic skill they often look they were done by a kindergartener. I love this technique because it looks so amazing. Dye-transfer of printed patterns from silk fabric is simple to do and looks like you had lots of talent to pull it off. The main rule to remember is that this only works with 100% silk fabric. There are lots of fabrics that feel kinda like silk but they won’t transfer at all. So don’t go by feel only. When collecting scrap silk fabric, you must check the tags. For silk shirts like Hawaiian shirts this tag will be at the neckline, for men’s silk ties this if often on backside of the skinnier end of the tie. Sometimes these labels are barely a 1/2 inch wide, so look carefully.

Here are some examples of labels:

easter eggs tag2 easter eggs tag1

I was curious to find out how well natural brown farm eggs would work for this experiment. I have my own chickens and most of them lay some shade of brown eggs, as you can see from the picture below. As always, I try to use what supplies I already have on hand, so I went with brown. I’m just a stickler that way. I was also a little bit concerned about my darker colored ties. There was lots of black in my samples. Would they be too dark? They were the cheapest silk ties at Goodwill so I went with those. Cumulatively, my fear was that my brown eggs plus my dark ties might not work out so well.

What you will need:

easter eggs supplies

MATERIALS

A dozen or more RAW eggs (do not pre-cook)

Large pot

Scissors

Pieces and scraps of 100 percent silk

Squares of un-dyed cotton

Vinegar

Rubber bands or twist ties

STEPS

Cut silk into pieces large enough to wrap around a raw egg. These work best if they can be large squares about 8″ square.Wrap each raw egg with a piece of silk, making sure the printed side of the material is facing the egg. Hold it in place while adding an outside layer of plain un-dyed cotton. I used an old sheet that my boys had written on with permanent marker. Secure the bundle with a twist tie or a rubber band. I also trimmed off some of the bulky fabric from each of the tops to make them easier to handle.

Place all of the the silk-wrapped bundles into a large pot. Fill the pot with enough water to cover eggs completely. Add 1/4 cup of white vinegar to the water.

After it comes to a boil turn the heat down, and simmer for 20 minutes or longer. Remove the pan from the stove and carefully dump out most of the water, leave the pot in the sink and add some cold tap water to the pot allowing it to overflow. I added a couple hand fulls of ice cubes to cool them down quicker. After leaving them to cool for a while, carefully remove each egg bundles from water. Unwrap the silk from cooled egg. Even though the eggs are still damp, the dye should not transfer to your fingers.

The final results

The black dye on the ties either came out a shade of burgundy red or a shade of blue! The brown eggs were not a problem at all and I was very pleased with the results.

BONUS Picture!

On the day I posted this one of my daughter’s chicken eggs hatched. She had placed it under a mother pigeon about 3 weeks ago, to see if it would incubate properly and it worked. It’s likely that the chick is actually a couple days old, but we only discovered it today. And here she is: