egg-speriment

After writing my post about Venetia Newall’s decorated eggs, I went away and did a bit more egg-scavatory reading. By poking about with keywords in the excellent digital resources available to members of the National Library of Scotland, I found out about the egg-focused practices of the English north, where, until the early years of the twentieth century “pace-egging” remained a definite thing: not just the decorating, collecting, or rolling of eggs, but masquerade performances which, in their topsy-turvy, syncretic nature (as well as their seasonality) reminded me a lot of the Mexican masked spring rituals (which I wrote about here). “Pace-eggers” were particularly prevalent in Rochdale, apparently, while in Blackburn rival gangs of notoriously riotous “eggers” existed. Women dressed as men, and men as women, while children donned their own fancy costumes and went about gathering eggs from neighbours. Throughout many areas of Lancashire, Northumberland, Westmorland and Cumberland, a carnival-like atmosphere seems to have persisted for several days while rural communities celebrated the arrival of spring more generally, as much as Easter in particular. If you’d like to learn more about egg decorating, and associated spring rituals in other parts of the world, I highly recommend Venetia Newall’s book, which beyond its obvious Easter focus, provides a marvellously wide-ranging, syncretic exploration of eggs and their cultural meanings, from Judaism to Buddhism, Denmark to Nepal.

Having admired the naturally dyed and resist-transfer decorated eggs from northern England in Newall’s collection, I also (obviously) had to have a go at creating my own. Honestly, for me, there are few things that are more fun than a low-stakes creative activity such as this. My working life is spent developing creative projects which require considerable skill, and whose quality has to be high. Don’t get me wrong, I love my work (I really do think I have the best job in the world!), but sometimes it feels very good to get back to creative basics: to not know what I am doing, experiment, make a mess, and just see what happens.

Tom was very happy to join me in my egg-speriments, which can be accomplished with just a few materials readily available around the house and garden, and whose method we share with you at the end of this post. But first, a few egg-splanatory words (and some egg photos) by way of introduction.

We began by acquiring the best type of eggs which, as Eva kindly pointed out in the comments on my last post, are those with white shells (which will work to create high contrast with the dye)

For the dye, we began by using onion skins, finding that the skins of both red and brown onions work very well, with the former paradoxically yielding a result less red than the latter.

You can use any wildflowers, leaves or herbs for the decoration. We found that small leaves with a good branching structure produced the best results, and that flowers needed to be flattened, or the petals separated, to adhere well to the egg.

The plant needs to be attached to the eggshell, either by binding or light adhesion. I found a tip in Venetia Newall’s book, where she mentions that “an old lady from the northern border country uses golden syrup very effectively,” and discovered that this worked well. I used a paintbrush and placed small dots of syrup onto the egg, and then positioned leaves on top with a pair of tweezers.

Tom was a little more liberal with his golden syrup, using a pastry brush to create a generally sticky surface to which larger leaves or flower heads adhered.

Both of these methods did what they were supposed to – ie – ensuring the plant stuck to the surface of the egg and didn’t move about during the binding process.

We used cut-up squares of a 15 denier pair of tights to bind our eggs: finding that the fine, stretchy fabric provided good absorption in the dye bath and was easy to secure with an elastic band.

Having achieved good results with the onion skins (more on timing and temperatures in the instructions below), we tried dyeing eggs blue rather than brown, by chopping up half a red cabbage and boiling it to create a dye liquor.

Our onion skins successfully dyed an egg in around 30 minutes, but the red cabbage took much longer to develop a decent colour. We let these blue eggs soak up the dye, at room temperature, for about six hours before unwrapping them.

the resulting blue is very beautiful, though not as deep or rich as the onion skins . . .

. . . a colour both luminous and delicate.

We found something very satisfying about the whole process: gathering leaves and flowers, boiling up a pot of natural dye, and decorating one symbol of seasonal abundance (an egg, laid by a happy spring chicken) with another (the tiny leaves and flowers that are popping up at this time of year).

Of course, Tom had to then photograph the plant dyed eggs amongst the plants themselves . . .

. . . these photos – which look like they’ve emerged straight from some dreamy elfin egg hunt – really made us laugh!

We certainly had a lot of fun egg-sperimenting – and we hope that you do too!

You’ll find our instructions to create your own plant-dyed, plant-decorated eggs below.

Plant dyed, plant decorated eggs (transfer resist method) 

you will need:

6 eggs with white or pale shells

12 onions (red, brown, or a combination, for eggs of rusty hue)

OR half a red cabbage (for blue eggs)

a pair of nylon tights or stockings (or squares of alternative light material, like muslin or cheesecloth) 

small amount of white wine vinegar (if dyeing with cabbage) 

foraged leaves, wildflowers or herbs 

golden syrup

pair of tweezers

elastic bands or twine 

small paint brush 

Instructions

1. Forage materials

Small leaves with a good branching structure work best. Flower heads (or petals) need to be fairly flat.  We used: fennel and flat-leaf parsley from the herb bed, the tips of small ferns, cranesbill leaves, saxifrage flowers, forget-me-not flowers, brunnera macrophylla flowers, anemone petals. 

2. Allow materials to settle

Flatten small flower heads flat under a heavy book, or allow leaves to wilt a little (to make them easier to manipulate / manoeuvre) 

3. Remove marks from eggs

If your eggs are stamped, remove the dye with a cloth soaked in white wine vinegar. If your eggs are marked with straw or other henhouse material, clean gently with a damp cloth. 

4. Prepare egg wraps

Cut the toes off the tights or stockings and, for each egg to be dyed, cut a tubular length about 4 in / 10cm. Cut these tubes in two, creating a flat square of fabric for each egg. Set aside. 

5. Prepare dye bath

Peel onions (or chop cabbage). Place onion skins (or cabbage) in a pan large enough to contain 6 eggs, cover with water, and bring to the boil. Leave pan simmering on the stove while you decorate your eggs.  

6. Decorate eggs

Ensure eggs are dry and free from marks. Arange plant materials, and plan their placement on egg surface. Using a paint brush, place dots of golden syrup (for small flowers) or brush syrup over larger areas (for leaves). WIth tweezers, position, arrange and adjust leaves and flowers around the surface of the egg. 

7. Wrap eggs

Place most heavily decorated area of egg face down on fabric square. Gently wrap fabric around egg, taking great care to ensure the plant materials stay in place and do not move. Draw fabric up around egg, creating a neat stretchy parcel, and secure this with an elastic band or length of twine. 

8. Cook eggs

Leaving your onion skins (or cabbage) in place, put your eggs in the pan to join them, ensuring that all eggs are covered equally with the liquor and surrounded by the dye materials. Bring pan back to the boil, and simmer for 7-10 minutes. 

9. Dye eggs

For onion dye: take pan off the boil, and allow the eggs to cool in the dye bath (for 30 minutes to 1 hour)

For cabbage: put a tablespoon of white wine vinegar into the pan, take it off the heat and allow the eggs to cool in the dye bath for several hours or overnight 

10. Unwrap eggs

Remove eggs from dyebath and unwrap them, carefully removing the fabric and the plant materials, using tweezers if necessary. Allow the eggs to fully dry.  

Admire your egg-cellent handiwork!