Thursday, April 9, 2009

Silk Tie Eggs, No Yolk!

Another holiday is upon us and of course I procrastinate til the last minute until I finally embark on a craft project. Went to my favorite search engine, looked up "decorate Easter eggs" and low and behold the Martha Stewart website appears. Martha is the queen of artsy decorative bric a brac, but would I be up to the project? The silk tie egg project got me all wide eyed and hyper, I rushed out to the thrift store to gather up old silk ties and some white bedsheets. I traveled all over the city looking for an egg blower and finally stumbled across one at an Ukrainian shop. The egg blower worked like a charm and pumped the white and yolk out of my eggies like nobodies business. The project was such a blast and turned out well I had to capture the moments in a little d.i.y. tutorial.

Here are a few items that you will need for your project:
Silk ties, dark rich vivid colors with small intricate patterns work best
White cloth such as a bed sheet, pillowcase, undershirt
Twistie ties or zip ties
enamelware or glass pot
slotted spoon
white vinegar
Eggs, you'll definitely need some eggs for this project (white or brown and medium to large in size)

Ok, ready set, roll

First we have our blown out eggs, I rinsed them with water and dried them by popping them in the microwave for a few seconds. You want the eggs to be dry but not hot.

Then you take a square from whatever silk item that you butchered and lay the egg against the cloth, print side up. I try and adjust the egg so it falls in place with as much graphic as possible.


Bundle the egg with the silk and just for the time being secure it with your hand.
Pardon my nails, I am in dire need of a manicure!

Next you will wrap the bundled in silk egg in a piece of white cloth. I ended up finding a bed sheet at the thrift store which worked nicely, although I definitely didn't need all that material. Oh well, I'll be stocked for next year.


Well it looks like I have two of the same pictures so for this step all you will do is bundle the egg completely in the white sheet, securing the fabric with your hand for the time being. The excess fabric will be like a white sheet ponytail in your hand, or a sideways ghost.


Use a twist tie, zip tie, strong rubber band or twine to secure the remaining cloth.

Repeat above steps until you run out of eggs or cloth, or get bored!


Fill your pot up with water until eggs are covered.

Add 3 tablespoons vinegar, glug glug glug


Let the egg concoction come to a boil

Simmer for 20 minutes, reward yourself for your hard work by having a glass of wine, beer, soda, water, milk, egg yolks, whatever you want!


When your timer beeps grab your slotted spoon to haul out your eggies because they will be hot, hot, hot! Don't want to burn yourself and risk drop your beautiful egg creation on the ground.

I transferred the eggs, one by one to a bowl in the sink and rinsed them with cool water before I attempted to snip off the twist tie. Hold your breath when you unwrap them because seeing what happened to your egg during this process can be quite shocking!


Your eggie will be need to be drained of water. Be careful because the water can be extremely hot, it was sitting in a simmering pot of water for the last 20 minutes.

Set your masterpieces aside to dry and celebrate your success with another drink!


ENJOY HAVE A HAPPY EASTER

I hope this tutorial was somewhat coherent, especially coming from a person that tends to be very incoherent.

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