Tie #4
Every year my Mom, aunt and cousins and I get together to color eggs. In addition to the usual store-bought coloring kits, we use silk. We mostly use old silk ties.
Husbands and fathers donate the ones that they don't want anymore, and we also find some at thrift stores. One year, I donated a silk skirt of mine that I'd worn so much it was falling apart. It was made of dozens of silk rectangles. All with different patterns. Some of the skirt pieces were still around for this year and I have a great specimen of one of them in my flickr set.
We tightly wrap an uncooked egg in a piece of silk, sewing the ends & edges closed. Then we steam cook them by the dozens in big pots. The pattern transfers to the egg, and voila, the coolest looking eggs ever!
This one is my favorite from this year. I don't know who's tie it is from, but it looks like a Miro or Picasso to me.
The white finger-like patterns on the bottom of the egg are actually spols where the egg was not in contact with the silk. When the fabric bunches up at the ends of the egg, we end up with cool designs like that in addition to whatever transfers off onto the egg from the silk.
This year, I took photos of a small sampling of them to share. I tried to do multiple angles of each egg so you could get a good idea of what they look like. Towards the end of the set, there are a few dip-dyoed eggs, too. I tried something new this year with the dip-dyed ones by doing them in two tones. I particularly like the photos of the purple one at the end of the set. It looks like it could be a planet or one of Jupiter's moons.
Husbands and fathers donate the ones that they don't want anymore, and we also find some at thrift stores. One year, I donated a silk skirt of mine that I'd worn so much it was falling apart. It was made of dozens of silk rectangles. All with different patterns. Some of the skirt pieces were still around for this year and I have a great specimen of one of them in my flickr set.
We tightly wrap an uncooked egg in a piece of silk, sewing the ends & edges closed. Then we steam cook them by the dozens in big pots. The pattern transfers to the egg, and voila, the coolest looking eggs ever!
This one is my favorite from this year. I don't know who's tie it is from, but it looks like a Miro or Picasso to me.
The white finger-like patterns on the bottom of the egg are actually spols where the egg was not in contact with the silk. When the fabric bunches up at the ends of the egg, we end up with cool designs like that in addition to whatever transfers off onto the egg from the silk.
This year, I took photos of a small sampling of them to share. I tried to do multiple angles of each egg so you could get a good idea of what they look like. Towards the end of the set, there are a few dip-dyoed eggs, too. I tried something new this year with the dip-dyed ones by doing them in two tones. I particularly like the photos of the purple one at the end of the set. It looks like it could be a planet or one of Jupiter's moons.
Comments