Silk Tie Dyed Eggs

I colored my Easter eggs today and I love how they turned out so much that I thought I'd share the process. It's not my process, I ripped it off from Martha Stewart so you can visit her website for instructions too.

Here's what you need: 

• raw eggs
• vinegar
• silk ties, boxers, pajamas, scarves or any other silk you're willing to mutilate
• white or light colored scrap fabric such as a bed sheet or muslin
• rubber bands or twist ties

I wanted to get as much silk from my ties as possible so I used a seam ripper to take them apart. If you don't care about wasting some of the silk, you could just whack off a section of the tie.

I used 6 different ties and even saved the little lining pieces from them too.

Cut a piece of silk large enough to wrap completely around the egg. One neck tie will do several eggs.

Place the egg on the right side of the silk, wrap tightly and secure with a rubber band or twist tie. After I secured the silk with a rubber band, I cut off the excess then used those scraps to make some patchwork eggs which ended up being my favorites.

The wrapping doesn't have to be perfect as long as all of the egg surface is covered. The next step will help with that too.

Now cut a piece of your white scrap fabric large enough to fit around your silk wrapped egg. Secure this with a rubber band or twist tie as well.

Place your eggs in a large pot and add enough water to completely cover them.

Add a splash of white vinegar to the water and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 25 minutes or until they're done the way you like them.

Remove the eggs from the pot and let them cool

Unwrap the eggs and check out their funkiness! I read somewhere that you can reuse the silk but the results will be lighter. I wasn't interested in testing that theory so I chunked it. But I did save the little pieces of white scrap fabric so I can reuse them the next time I do this.

The eggs come out with a matte finish so if you want them to have a sheen you can rub them with a little vegetable oil. That's my fancy oil bottle that I got at the Dollar Tree.

Here are some close ups of a few of the eggs. The pattern on this one transferred really well. There was an eagle on the tie and you can still clearly see its wings.

This is one of the patchwork eggs I made using scraps from several different ties. I think next time I will do them all like this.

This purple egg was wrapped with a piece of solid black silk from the lining of one of the ties.

I love how the colors and patterns are randomly variegated.

I lined my basked with a vintage tea towel which made a perfect background for the eggs.

That's all there is to it! The only difficult part might be finding patterned silk that you can cut up but now we have a whole year to work on hoarding it.