Approaching the Egg Moon

An egg dyed with pigment from wild violets that I picked. Read on to see how you can do this too!

The moon in April is sometimes called the Egg Moon. This time of year brings baby animals, new life bursting out of the ground, out of the trees, in ourselves. This week is going to take a different shape from previous blogs / newsletters: I’m going to walk you through my process of dyeing eggs, along with why I do it this way and how the process itself is magic. This will be a picture-heavy week, so if you love books with lots of pictures in them, this one’s for you.

The process starts with picking wild violets. This is something I do every year now. I started when I lived at my old house, because there were so many beautiful violets in my yard. I researched whether they could be used medicinally, and found that people use them to make a gorgeous purple simple syrup to put in drinks. I’ve done that for several years, and occasionally I’ve made natural dyes for eggs, and this year I wondered if I could put the two together. Turns out, you can.

This is how I look when I pick wild violets.

Not all wild violets are bright purple. Some are white blending into a very pale purple. I decided to put a couple of those in the mix too, as that felt very magical.

I picked about two cups, which is enough to make simple syrup, when a friend asked me if I wanted to come to her house to pick some, because her yard had a LOT. I drove over that afternoon and we spent a while lying on blankets in her yard, drinking sparkling water, picking the abundant violets, and talking.

I found the process of creating dye and eggs this year particularly magical because the process itself was such a joy. While I can quickly pick violets in my own yard and have enough to make simple syrup for myself and a couple friends, letting this whole project take about a week made it more expansive and meaningful. I plan to do this every year now: a short wild violet festival. I love to pick violets alone and connect with my yard, and I loved picking them with a friend and connecting more broadly too.

The violets are small, soft and have a delicate green bulb where they connect with the stem. They smell vegetal and spring-like. Their abundance is always startling and makes me feel grateful.

When my friend and I had picked A LOT of violets and were too hot from the sun, we stopped and sat in the shade. The violet picking was done. I really liked letting “done” arrive organically.

To make the simple syrup, I put 2 cups of violets in a pyrex and poured hot water to the 2 cup mark.

Then I let it sit for a while, maybe 2h, and steep. Here you can see the water turning blue.

Then I strained it and melted 1 cup of sugar into it (I think you’re supposed to do 1:1 ratio for simple syrup, but I like it less sweet).

The simple syrup comes out a turquoise blue at first, but you can add lemon juice and the acid turns it purple. Above you can see just the top turning . . .

And here I am stirring the lemon juice in until the whole thing turns.

I saved one jar without lemon juice and made one with, so I could have multiple colors of special beverages! I think they look like jewels.

At the dinner gathering I hosted where we drank these beverages, I used some of each syrup. The blue one turned purple in the cup, but it was a bluer kind of purple.

Okay, back to the eggs! While the violets were steeping for the simple syrup, I followed this recipe to make the dye. I doubled it for dyeing eggs in a group.

Here’s what the violets look like when you strain them. They smell earthy and good.

Then I used a power drill with a roughly 1/8 inch bit to gently drill holes in the tip and bottom of my eggs. I wanted to blow the eggs so I could save them for longer; I have a couple I made years ago, and they are a touchstone of the season to me.

Then I took a paperclip, swirled it around inside the eggs, and blew out the insides into this tupperware. Later, my partner Evan used the eggs to make chickpea quinoa burgers for our dinner gathering. This picture is a nice and composed one of me blowing the eggs, right when I started.

This is after I’d been blowing for a minute and my face was getting red.

I didn’t get as many pictures of the wax part, it was an action-y part of the evening. What I did was melt a bunch of beeswax pastilles in a pot, put tape on a bunch of pencils, and sit at our table with friends where we then dipped the pencils in the wax and dabbed it onto our eggs to seal the holes and also make designs. I had to get up periodically to re-melt the wax; I will try a double boiler next year.

Once we had the wax done and it had hardened, we put our eggs 2-apiece into the dye in these takeout containers, then put the tops on to press them down into the dye. I rotated the eggs twice throughout the night and morning to make sure the dye was relatively even.

Overnight, the dye, which had been purple from the acid of the vinegar, turned blue again! Wild stuff.

I rinsed the dye off the eggs . . .

Here they are all in a bowl together. You can see some folks dipped the eggs in the wax, too.

Finally, I held the eggs over a flame to soften the wax, and wiped it off with a paper towel. This part takes the most patience, and you have to hold the egg pretty close to the flame to get it soft. I recommend short bursts of very close to the flame, then wiping off the wax. This part incorporates fire, which I also love as a magical companion.

The picture at the top is one side of my finished egg! This is the other side, with its inspiration, Tulip the rabbit.

This process was really rewarding. This Saturday, when my friends come by for a belated Ostara fire ritual, I’ll give them back their eggs. I like doing this kind of thing messily, and every year I get a little better at it. It becomes a process of growing my knowledge, and sharing my practices, a little more each round.

I hope you enjoyed this egg journey with me! I’ll see you here next week.

xox

Isabel

Village Witch’s Corner

My intention this week : 

To be honest with myself about who and how I am, even when it’s hard.

Questions I'm asking this week:

What is my motivation in doing the hard things that are important to me?

Can this be “done” enough for today?

What I’m reading:

I’m reading State of Wonder, by Ann Patchett. It’s a book I’ve long wanted to read because of Elizabeth Gilbert’s amazing story in Big Magic about how she and Ann Patchett passed the story between then with a kiss. So far, I’m really enjoying the tale.

What’s happening in my Patreon:

This is the week following Ostara, still a great time to perform an Ostara ritual or meditation.

Tiny Spell of the Week:

Notice all the colors in the natural world of your home area. Which ones look especially good next to each other?