natural dyes…

Mr Magpie recently brought home two bags of onion skins and thus began a wonderful two day+ adventure eco dyeing eggs AND fabrics...

last year I used onion skins, beets and turmeric to dye eggs but resorted to food coloring for some blue and green…

this year I went all natural using two kinds of onion skins, beets and red cabbage and could not be more pleased with the results and surprises all along the way…

here is how I did our eggs starting with Martha Stewart’s fail proof method of hard boiling eggs so the yolks stay a pretty yellow with no green coloring at all…

using squares cut from nylons to help press the items I selected against the egg to act as a resist I tied the bundles securely with a twist tie to help hold everything in place (you can tell how excited I got about this by my run on wording trying to tell you about it all)…

after filling one pot with yellow onion skins (pulled from 10-12 onions at the supermarket thanks to my Mr Magpie!) and a second pot for red onion skins I added about 4 cups of water to each pot (not covering the skins completely) along with 3 Tablespoons of white vinegar …

bring the skins and water to a boil and simmer for 30 minutes or longer straining liquid from the plant material (rubber gloves and paper to protect your work surface are a very good idea)…

soak bundled eggs in the dye liquid in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight…

the eggs needed to be handled gently after removing  them from the nylon wrappers and dabbed dry to keep from smudging the dye giving them a chance to dry completely undisturbed…

Love the golden glow the yellow onion skins gave the eggs…

the resist pattern flopped on one of the red onion dyed eggs above on the left (I tried layering threads from ripping a second hand eyelet dust ruffle which made great fabric for dyeing) so I gently dabbed the egg with a paper towel leaving a wonderful mottled finish…

who would guess that red onion skins would turn eggs into rich chocolate colors…

 on day two I chopped up the beets for one pot and the red cabbage in a second pot following the same cooking directions as I did for the onion skins…

as vibrant as the beet dye turned out the eggs stayed a soft color…

 interesting green colors emerged which is a bit mysterious because no greenery was used in the beet dye bath at all…

the red cabbage had the biggest WOW reaction for me leaving me to wonder HOW it could dye the eggs beautiful shades of blue while fabrics turned gorgeous shades of lavender using the same cabbage dye bath…

the lighter colored blue eggs were soaked for several hours

and the darker blue were left in the cabbage dye overnight in the refrigerator …

as you can tell I was more than delighted with this entire process…

only one egg cracked during cooking which was a good way to test the yolk which was done to perfection…

I could do an entire post on the fun of using up the leftover dyes for fabric scraps, laces and doilies and such…

but I have gone on long enough here…

if you are interested in learning more about the possibilities of dyeing with natural plant materials try searching the internet for “natural dyes” and prepare to be amazed…

“A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked” ~Bernard Meltzer