Natural Playsilk & Egg Dyeing

February 21, 2023

A rainbow of color may be found in your kitchen thanks to the magic of natural dye! With spring upon us at Sarah’s Silks we got our eggs and White Playsilks out for dyeing. This recipe will dye 12-24 eggs and 8 Mini Playsilks (or 4 regular size Playsilks).

We will start by making the dye for our Playsilks and use the same dye bath for the eggs. For the Playsilks we used cabbage, avocado pits, yellow onion skins and turmeric. Even after our Playsilks and eggs are done our dyes may then be used as watercolors!

What You'll Need:

12-24 brown and white eggs
White Playsilks for dyeing
Glass jars
Several pots for cooking the dyes
Half a head of purple cabbage
4 avocado pits
2 Large handfuls of yellow onion skins
3-4 Tablespoons of turmeric
Vinegar

For the Playsilks:

Chop up the cabbage and gather all your supplies.

Add each item to its own pot and add water to cover the contents.

Bring each dye pot to a simmer for 20 minutes. For the avocado, the longer it's cooked, the darker the color. For the color pictured, we simmered our avocado pits for 1 hour.

Strain your dyes and add them back to their pots (it’s ok if the turmeric doesn’t strain out all the way).

Add your Playsilk and simmer on very low for another 20 minutes - stirring occasionally.

You can either keep cooking your Playsilk to achieve a darker hue, or let your Playsilk sit in the dye pots overnight.

Ring out your Playsilks and hang to dry out of the sun (the turmeric Playsilk may need a little rinse to clean off the spice). Leave your Playsilks to “cure” as we start on the eggs.

For the eggs:

Your Playsilks and eggs will share the same dye bath.

Place your eggs in the dye pots, making sure the dye covers the eggs (add a bit of water if needed). When the dye starts to simmer, cook your eggs for 10 mins.

Note: Wooden Eggs won't work for this project, but you may try painting them with the leftover dye.

Prepare glass jars - ideally one jar for each egg to get the maximum dye coverage, but you may place 2-3 eggs in each jar.