Saturday, April 07, 2007

Happy Easter!

This is my contribution to Easter food this year. Eggs dyed with silk ties. There were some really cool silk boxers I could have used, but it would have felt too much like that commercial about colon polyps where the guy eats the lima bean.

I've been thinking through the assembly on a new design and that's taken up all my time and energy for the last couple of days. I finally decided on the construction, although I'm SURE there's an easier way to do it. Or maybe not. It's a pieced background with a big applique over it, except that there are 'blank' spots in the applique that are only stitched lines across some of the background pieces. Hard to describe and even harder to figure out technically. I finally wound up basting the background pieces together, stitching the outline for the applique on the whole thing, then taking it apart so I can do the applique on the pieces that have it and the outline stitches on the pieces that have that. Then I'll sew all the background pieces back together. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the background pieces off-set at the seams so the outlines and applique don't line up. I just finished a very simple 4-patch for a friend so I think my Muse is punishing me.

4 comments:

Tanya Brown said...

Your Easter eggs are very nifty. You dyed with silk ties? How does one go about that?

Delta said...

It's from the Martha Stewart site. http://tinyurl.com/ypqabr
or do a search on 'silk tie eggs' from MarthaStewart.com and it should come up. They're actually VERY easy.

Tanya Brown said...

Say, that's cool! Thanks for posting the URL.

I'm guessing that the silk is less vivid afterward? I wonder if Martha did any tests on the toxicity of the silk dye, and how likely it would be to seep through the egg shells.

Most of all, though, I'm admiring the great range of colors and patterns of eggs you have. You must have a lot of dyed silk!

Delta said...

I actually went down to the Salvation Army and bought a bunch of bright silk ties. An entire BAG of them for under $10 and there's a LOT of fabric in a tie. They really didn't lose any of their color but some of them did get some blotches on them, but none where the tie was actually touching the egg. I did discover that yellows don't transfer well at all, which is a shame since I had a mostly yellow daisy pattern that I was looking forward to. The colored centers and the leaves came out great though. That's one of the 2 that I ate this morning, and there was no bleed through at all of the colors. I'm guessing since silk and egg shells are both proteins that is why the dye thing works. Or maybe it's the vinegar. Who knows?