A note on dying Easter eggs.

Last year the children and I dyed some boiled eggs in honour of Easter, using food colouring from the store. These eggs were nice, but turned out some pretty neon-looking colours that almost hurt the eyes. This year I wanted to go for a more natural look, and besides, wouldn't it be fun to experiment with natural dyes? It's something that I don't know anything about, and would like to learn more.

I have always been fascinated with the idea of natural dyes. I remember being about 10 years old and trying to dye a pair of white socks purple with the berries that grew on a vine in our back yard. It didn't work then...and it didn't quite work now, either!

The three orange eggs were dyed with onion skins. I just put a bunch of onion skins in a pot of water, added some eggs, and brought it to a boil. I was amazed how quickly the colour came out of the onion skins. Next time, I will definitely put far fewer onion skins, so as to acheive a yellow colour instead of dark orange--those eggs are so dark they almost look like brown eggs, don't they?

The other four eggs which are a lovely concrete grey...ahem. Well, they were supposed to be purple. I tried boiling them with a handful of blueberries. When I could see that the eggs were not turning purple, I added a spoonful of grape jelly. It couldn't hurt, right? But it just turned them darker grey. Quite disappointing.

What I envisioned was a lovely basket of purple and yellow eggs. Instead I got dark orange and grey. Ah, well. Next year I will spend some time properly researching natural dyes, and if all goes well we'll have eggs all the colours of the rainbow. In the meantime, I'm posting this, hoping that someone can learn from my mistakes. :)

I also hope that everyone is having a lovely and peaceful Good Friday. I think I will be taking the rest of the weekend off, but I'll be back on Monday.  Happy Easter Everyone!

Comments

[Shannon]

The colours are still nice in a calm autumn morning sort of way. :)

[Mom]

I think I remember those socks :-)
Mom

[Healing Hillary]

Even though they did not turn out as expected...these are lovely natural colors. Such an ease to the eye. Thanks for sharing.

[Laura @livingourway.com]

Your results are a lot like mine! I think that my main problem was dying brown eggs. My experiment turned out well with grape juice soaked over night, the onion skins (like yours) and the blueberries actually did really well too. One of the keys is also mixing the natural dyes with vinegar. I'm not giving up! We will try again next year :)

[Laura Jeanne]

Yes, I'm going to try again next year too! Trying things out is the best way to learn things, isn't it. I figure 4 or 5 years from now I'll have discovered how to make Easter eggs that are rather stunning. :)