Silk Tie Egg Dye

Been meaning to try yet another Pinterest craft idea:  Silk tie egg dying.

So off to the thrift shop I went, in search of some cheap men's ties and lucked out to get 2 with great, small patterns.  They have to be 100% silk. 

First you disassemble the tie.  I only used the large, lower part.  I saved the top part for something else I wanna try. 

Because I wanted to save the dyed eggs, it was necessary to blow the yolks out.  I like to carefully work an awl into the top and bottom of the egg because it's long enough to puncture the yolk sac.  I was pretty lucky  in that all 3 eggs didn't break apart, like I've had happen in the past.

Gooey.

Grody.  I suppose it's wasteful to throw out the blown yolks; I could have scrambled them and made breakfast, but I didn't.  When they were empty, they were rinsed and then left to drain and dry for a few hours.

Next wrap the tie fabric around the eggs, pattern-side/front-of-tie against the egg, and seal with a twistie.  Again, I had to use a pretty gentle touch to keep the eggs from breaking!  Because of that, I couldn't pull the fabric as tight as I would have liked.

Next, wrap some plain fabric around them.  I used an old pillowcase.  And more twisties. 

Fill a pot with water and 1/4 cup of vinegar.

Place the eggs in and boil for 20 minutes.  I knew that I was going to have a problem with the fact that they were going to float because they were empty.  So I ended up using a spoon to try and keep them turning and submerged as much as possible.  The eggs filled up with water a little bit, so that helped weight them down, too.  

I don't have any pictures of the eggs after they were removed from the water because I was just too excited for the 'reveal'.  I simply couldn't wait for them to drain and cool on their own.  I burned my fingers a little bit taking the fabric off, and then I had to blow the hot water out of the eggs too. Here's the end result.  

If I do this again, I will use more fabric because a lot of it didn't end up touching the egg so there's white shell showing in places.  I'd also like to figure out a way to keep the hollow eggs from floating.