Silk Dyed Easter Eggs

We are in SLC for spring break, and we always like to do crafts with my mom while we are here.  My mom found this great idea online to dye Easter Eggs.  The blogs and tutorials online said to use mens ties that were 100% silk.  We scoured Deseret Industries for good ties, and had no luck. I figured that all the Salt Lake blogger-mommies had probably already seen this idea online and had scavenged all the pretty ties already.  So my mom had the idea to head over to the womens section to look for silk blouses.  

Boy, did we ever score!  Aubrey found this hideous silk outfit for $8, and we picked up two other bountiful blouses for $3 each.  We have enough silk for 3 years now! We cut all of the silk into 6" squares.

Here's how we dyed the eggs:

Wrap an uncooked egg very tightly in a 6" square of silk, with the right side of the fabric against the egg.  You should wrap it as tightly as possible.  Then use a small hair elastic to secure the silk at the top of the egg.  It has to be super tight because the dye will only transfer to the egg where there is direct contact.

After the egg is wrapped in silk, you wrap it again in a plain white cotton cloth and secure it once again with a small hair elastic.  We cut up some of my dad's old handkerchiefs to use as the outer wrapping.

 Fill a large pot with enough water to cover the eggs.  Add 1/4 cup of vinegar to the water.  Then place the eggs into the pot and bring to a boil.  When the water is boiling, set the timer for 20 minutes and let the eggs continue boiling for 20 minutes.

After 20 minutes, remove the wrapped eggs from the pot and place them on a cloth until they have reached room temperature.  Then you can remove the white cloth and the silk to see what magic you have just created!

When we did our eggs, the entire pot of water turned a dark purple.  I was sure that the eggs would all come out the beautiful reddish-purple color of Greek Easter eggs.  I was so pleasantly surprised to find that none of the purple from the water had dyed the eggs.  Only the dye from the silk had transferred to the eggs.  So don't freak out if your water turns a dark color, because your eggs are safe and sound inside of their wrappers.