The Coolest Thing!

Last week I saw a post on Our Best Bites blog.  Those girls have the BEST stuff--mostly food, but other things, too.  This time it was a way to recycle silk neckties into beautiful Easter eggs.  Since Easter is not so far away, and as there are four grandchildren who live not so far away, and since I found this blog post in the presence of Caleb when I was babysitting the other night, which Caleb was totally entranced with the beautiful eggs, I thought I would give it a try.

On Saturday, when I had too many errands to run and not enough time to run them, I stopped at the "Good Buy" thrift store to see if they had silk neckties.  They did but they were $5 apiece and I was too cheap to spend $15 on ties.  I then stopped at the LISTEN store and found them for $2.75.  This time I bit, and purchased three ties.  I showed them to Caleb that night when I was babysitting again (a real bonus because I NEVER get to babysit those darling children two days in a row), and he was edgy to get started immediately on the project.  Well, I had had too much business that day and disappointed him tremendously, which resulted in a bit of an issue, but finally he understood that Grammie was just too tired.

SO...this morning I gave the project a try. 

First you take the neck ties apart carefully to preserve as much silk as possible.  (Remember: ONLY 100 percent silk ties work!!)

Next cut a good-sized piece that you can wrap tightly around the egg (without smashing the egg) AND WHICH FABRIC CONTACTS EVERY BIT OF THE EGG!

This shows that you need to have full contact between silk tie and egg.

Eggs Cooling After Being Dyed

Take a somewhat larger piece of light-weight, light colored fabric (I used cheap muslin from Joann) and, after re-checking that the silk totally enrobes the egg, pull up the two fabrics together and tie very firmly at the top.

Put into a large pot then cover with more than  2 inches of water and pour in 1/4 cup of vinegar.  Bring to a boil and boil 20 minutes.

Remove egg bundles from pot, letting them drain thoroughly over the pot, and  place in an egg carton.  Let cool for as long as you can stand it.  Snip the tie, in my case, case some acrylic yarn.  Twist ties are suggested and if I had some I would do that.  As I am writing this I think with the next batch I will tie the silk, and then tie the muslin, too.  This way perhaps there will be better contact.  I will also do some folding of the silk over the egg to enhance the contact comfort.

Best Egg Forward!

I made a little video of opening the egg bundles but don't have time to read all about uploading videos (I am in the midst of a major housecleaning project to find some missing items...) right now so I will just show a few still photos I took.




This was fun!  Thanks to the Best Bites ladies. I Pinned this on my Pinterest board and immediately several people re-pinned!  That was exciting...

Now I am going to see if I can do stripe-y eggs!  Well, after I finish the cleaning project.  I have been missing those items for several months and it is getting really annoying.