And every month a new magazine would come with stunning photos of how one "should live" -- I know that is not exactly the motto of the magazine, but is it not implied in the title.
The second month in I found M.S. pretty annoying -- she photographed and wrote an article about her "craft studio" where she had coordinating boxes made to hold paper and ribbon and dodads that I would not know what to do with if I even had the time to take up crafts other than pysanky, crocheting, and some minor sewing. I don't "live" with coordinating anything -- furniture, clothes, etc.; only my shoes match each other and sometimes my socks.
The recipes were good though. Well, when adapted. I mean, with instructions like "pick tomatoes that have ripened in the sunshine in your garden" -- come on!!! Like I am not going to Trader Joe's and getting whatever tomatoes they have that look good. If I am virtuous and have the time, I might get some from the farmers market, but still, I am not growing tomatoes on my condo balcony just to follow through on the recipes.
And I don't think I like champagne vinegar. Or at least the expensive kind from Whole Foods -- the cheap stuff at Trader Joe's is a lot tastier.
Pascha was swiftly approaching and I was trying to make pysanky when this arrived at my door step.
And I got really excited! This looked like pysanky made simple, like pysanky quick and easy, and perhaps like pysanky in mass production. So, I read the article on the next page...
...and it looked simple enough. I just needed to grab some dye (no trouble since I have tons from getting ready for pysanky) and some "inexpensive" lace trimmings (this fact will come into play later...).So, I headed up to Jo Ann fabrics in Shoreline (just over the Seattle border) and spent an hour searching and selecting lace that I thought could work well on an egg.
Then I headed home and following the instructions, first tried it with a red and brown egg -- thinking it would be really pretty with a brilliant red against the relief of a lacy brown.
I ended up with a completely red egg (no photo available) with a faint imprint of lace in one section. I just shrugged and thought "oh, the pysanky dye is too strong" and turned the egg into the black and red Asian inspired egg pictured on this blog. I went back and read my pysanky books and saw that one could create a "lighter" shade of blue by diluting it and thought "oh, maybe this would work for the lacey eggs". But I tried the lightened dye first on a pysanky in progress. It turned out well, so I took it as a good sign for the lacey eggs.
So then I tried it with the lace. And I am proud to present evidence that MARTHA = FAIL.
I ended up with blue eggs! I even tried a HARD BOILED egg just like prescribed in the article...and no success there (I had to throw it away too because the pysanky dye is toxic). Then I tried it with normal edible egg dye and clean lace -- had some funky eggs in my Pascha basket (beside the one with a wrapper showing Obi Wan fighting the Evil Emperor. What? Don't judge!)
Some of you reading it may recall the bitter rant I gave about this in Oregon and had some insight into how my logic was distracted by the hopeful thought that I could churn mass quantities of pysanky out like I did in college. It really would not, could not work...ever. If you think about it, lace is not sturdy enough to lie flush against the curved surface of an egg nor does a rubber band enough of a tension to cause the lace to stay still long enough so no dye could get under the surface.
And after putting all that time into trying to make the dye and lace work I just ended up with a bunch of blue eggs...I threw them away (as painful as it was).
And I have tons of lace now, so if any of you out there need some inexpensive lace trimmings, I have them. And by inexpensive I mean it was $1 for a yard of three inch trim. MS on the other hand spent $60 ^%&$%# dollars on her "inexpensive" lace trimmings.
I suppose if I had gone to Federal prison for insider trading, $60 would be inexpensive to me as well.
I am left to conclude that the images in the magazine were either:
1) photoshopped by her minions
2) hand-painted in Mexico or India by under-paid workers who were not allowed to leave until they had a product that resembled something that could be done with lace, eggs, and dye easily so as to fool readers into a false sense of successfulness.
And if my body is found in a remote location, then you know I have uncovered the truth.
Just make sure my husband is well fed - thanks :D
(on a side note: what is up with the shuffle on my favorite itunes mix? It is totally churning out the good stuff: Arthea Franklin, Lily Allen, Bow Wow Wow, Kate Rusby...no Neil Diamond in sight. Yes, I like Neil Diamond...in small doses. I have had to stop writing for awhile to dance in my chair -- it is difficult to type and bop around. Plus I get some physical activity that way...ooo, Crocodile Rock!)
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