A new use for tie-dye

Yesterday Isaac and I dyed Easter eggs, a process that has gotten a lot more complicated since I used to do it with the previous generation.  His mom brought over a kit called "Tie-Dyed Easter Eggs," and I was eager to see what that entailed.

The kit provided a plastic box with an egg-shaped space in the middle, and two four-inch squares of white cotton.  We poked holes in eight places on each side of the space, then wet a square of fabric, wrapped it around the egg, and closed the egg into the plastic box.  Then we sucked up some dye into a dropper with a very tiny tip and squeezed it through the holes into the wet wrapping.  We put different colors into the different holes, and when the fabric looked totally saturated, unwrapped the egg.

It was beautifully dyed, with a few white areas and a lot of pleasant merging of colors.  But we decided, after the first egg, that the plastic box was unnecessary.  For subsequent eggs we just wrapped the wet fabric around the egg and dropped the dye directly onto the fabric, held in hand.

As time went on (we had two dozen eggs) we sometimes dispensed with the fabric, and just dropped the dye onto the egg, or applied it with a finger.

A few times Isaac decided to squirt dye onto the egg and rub it around between his palms.  That worked too.

We just left the last couple of eggs sitting in the dye dishes to make nice dark rings on the bottom end.

The eggs were gorgeous.  So were the two pieces of fabric.  Isaac took one home and I kept one to use in my people project.  I also kept the plastic eyedropper; I've never had one with such a tiny tip and I can think of lots of uses for pencil-thin lines of dye or ink.

What a long way from the Easter eggs of my childhood, when we just dipped them in the dye and they ended up plain pink.  No new technology (except for the useless plastic box) but new imagination, with fabric.  What could be better!

Happy Easter!