Sunday, April 19, 2009

Easter Eggs from a Bosnian recipe























I used a very interesting Bosnian recipe to dye my Russian Easter eggs. I've never tried onion skins
as a dye. I have been collecting the skins for quite a while for dying yarn; however this beautiful method presented on the website above was too much of a temptation!

My Recipe:

I used 4 oz of yellow onion skins, 2 tablespoons of white vinegar and enough water to cover the skins. I boiled eggs in water first (about 5 min); meanwhile the skins were simmering on low in another pot.. I took eggs out and placed flowers and leaves on them, covering eggs with nylon stockings, and tying each stocking with a string (did not use rubber bands, but will next time: some of the designs did not come out as sharp as Ozanna's, probably because the rubber bands would have helped keeping the stockings tighter around the eggs.) Each batch (5 eggs) simmered different time giving them color variations. I was truly amazed by the intensity of brown/burnt orange color! Can't wait to dye yarn with the onion skins!
For darker colors eggs were simmering about 1/2 hour. When they were all done, my husband rubbed them with some olive oil to make them shiny.
Plants used: forthysia (cross-shaped design), periwinkle, dandelion leaves, and some others.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Those eggs turned out beautiful! I never even considered the possibility! Can't wait to try this!
Tricia

argus said...

Thank you! It was my first attempt, and I am really surprised by the colors.