Dye Your Easter Eggs Naturally….And So Much More

If you’ve thought about dyeing your own Easter eggs or have tried with limited success, there’s
a new book that will inspire you to dye your own and a lot more. Open up A Garden to Dye For
(St. Martin’s Press), and enter the world of using kitchen scraps and plants from your garden to
create beautiful, natural dyes.
Budding botanical alchemist Chris McLaughlin is author of the book, and she artfully guides you
through the process of growing, harvesting and using plant materials to create stunning dyes
for a wide variety of items, including clothing like scarves. The author started experimenting
with plant dyes 20 years ago after reading an article on dyeing eggs naturally using plants.
“For a long time, I played around with this subject as well pounding flowers for color,” says the
garden blogger, whose site is Home AG, a Suburban Farmer. “When I became interested in
hand spinning, I was reintroduced to botanical dyes as it applies to dyeing fiber. I was transfixed
and never looked back.”
During her journey discovering natural dyes, McLaughlin didn’t run across any other gardeners
dabbling in pulling color from the garden, so she decided to write the book. “I thought surely it
was the plant lover that should be playing around with botanical colors, but these dyeing
techniques seemed to remain in the fiber artist circles,” she says. “I decided to bridge the gap
between mainstream gardeners and the hand crafter world. I wrote the book from the
perspective of a plant, animal and fiber lover, experimenter, and student of the arts.”
Since Easter is upon us, McLaughlin shares here how to dye gorgeous Easter eggs. Pick up a
copy of her book to learn how to make your own fabric dyes with step-by-step recipes. The
book includes a section on more than 40 plants you may have in your garden or home right now
and the rainbow of colors they have to offer.
Dye Your Own Easter Eggs
Plants/kitchen scraps for dyeing eggs: Onion skins, beets, blueberries, blackberries, turmeric,
red cabbage, coffee, coreopsis, St. John's wort, rudbeckia, marigolds, calendula and chamomile.
Easter eggs are usually naturally dyed in a hot bath, which means that the eggs are colored at
the same time they're being hard-boiled; or they can be dyed in a cold bath. McLaughlin prefers
the cold method, because the colors come out much more intense and you can make a variety
of dyes in advance, so that recipe is shared here. (You can read about the hot method in the
book.)
What you’ll need to cold dye your own Easter Eggs:

• Non-reactive dyepots
• Water
• Glass jars or bowls (for cold method)
• Eggs
• White vinegar
• Dyestuff: onion skins, berries, turmeric, beets, red cabbage, etc.
Cold Egg Dye Method
Make the dyes by simmering the respective plant materials in pots of water for 20 – 25 minutes.
Strain off the dyestuff, add 1/8 cup of vinegar, and let the liquid cool in jars. Once the dye is
cool, add an already hard-boiled egg to each dye color and leave them there for at least an hour
– but for the most impressive colors, leave them in there up to 10 hours.
If you leave the hard-boiled egg in the dye for longer than two hours, refrigerate it during the
dying process for health safety reasons. And never use any plant materials that are considered
poisonous for eggs that will be eaten. Use only what you know to be safe, edible foods (plants).
McLaughlin also suggests taking good notes and keeping samples of your favorite dye colors. “If
you're an experimenter, you will NOT remember how you arrived at that beautiful color,” she
says.
Once you’ve gotten the hang of dyeing Easter eggs, you’ll soon find yourself looking around
your garden and saying to yourself, I can dye that.