Seeing 'Red' ~ by Mysticsilks

My daughter needed to get rid of her worn out van with its 130,000 miles of traveling rough roads. I had a PT Cruiser which I had only cruised up to ,4000 plus miles--in other words , it was hardly broken in. However I have a back that allows for only adjustable comfort seats, and that PT did not have it.
My son wanted to know why I wanted the PT Cruiser in the 1st place. I told him it reminded me of my Uncle Andy's car from the mid 40's;nostalgia and nothing more had a hand in purchasing that car.


Now, let it be known before we go on with this story, I HATE to buy cars. I think it is one of the biggest wastes on money that there is. In that you lose $3,000 the minute you sign your name and drive off the car lot! And that car salesmen are trained to double talk you, place 'reel them in ads' with prices and deals you can't ignore, only to tell you that the ad expired,or that car was a basic( a basic what I wonder?) Anyway you're not going to buy that car that was in the ad for $15,599---just not happening.
In fact the salesman told me after I mentioned the ad, "what ad"? I replied, I had just seen in in this last weeks paper. Well, he couldn't remember, and it was then I knew we were all in for the long haul of negotiations:Hours, and days of negotiations.

I went home after the 1st day and mixed an energy drink. Next day I went in, and again told him the price I wanted to pay;in fact I found the ad with the 'bargain price, and showed it to him.
"Hmmm,", was his response and he promptly left me sitting in my chair for the hundredth time to go yadda, yadda with his sales manager, and to show him the ad.
I think after the 101th time of this 'go ask the sales manager' I finally said, " Why don't you have the sales-manager come to this table ,and the three of us can hammer out the details?"
He simply chuckled and went again to confer with his sales manager.


In the meanwhile my grandson and I looked at colors of the vehicle I was interested in.
I thought maybe a silver, or grey, or even a crystal blue color.
" Na," Zach offers, " your too alive gram for those pale colors why don't you get the deep cherry red.?"
You're right Zach, why not get a lively color, I thought. And that's just what I did.
Now, to add the finishing touches to this buying of a new car, my son came in to do a bit of man-to-man negotiations with the sales-manager.
An additional bumper to bumper extended 5 year warranty was requested. The sale-manager agreed.


Next ,they were going to put out a search for the car that I wanted and would call me when it came in.
Next day I got the call, and went in to buy the car, do the paper work while they were detailing the car( washing, vacuuming the inside, and full wax job). I took a walk back to the service area , and it was a beauty!
Went back to the finance manager , he was processing the paper work while we joked back and forth. Soon we were done, I took the keys , the paper work and headed home.
A bit later after the dealership closed I took apart the paper work to gather the info I would need for car insurance. I noticed on the documents , that it stated I had purchased a blue Dodge Avenger.
I grabbed the paper work and went out to the living room to show my son.
" Did I buy the wrong car Bill?" I showed him the papers. He laughed. " No, you bought a deep cherry red Chrysler 200: Better call them in the morning."

I called them next morning and told them I was coming in to get my Avenger,which thoroughly confused the sales-manager until I told him what transpired.
So we got the paper work straightened out. The finance manager said, it was an 'honest mistake'.
I said it was OK, but not really. If I had been stopped by the police the night I brought the car home, and he had asked for my registration paper, I would have given him the blue Avenger registration. I am sure he would have said," follow me lady we're headed for the station so you can explain this."
I shudder to think of what could have happened.
OK, it's a beauty, I call her " Red"
But, I HATE buying new cars.

Please visit:http://mysticsilks.etsy.com

Go Fly A Kite!`MysticSilks

"Up,up and away in my beautiful balloon.." Oops, nice song but nothing to do with kite flying. Can anyone think of a song with the word kite in it?
OK, back to topic of kite flying.

Sometimes I have to do something other than design silk scarves, and I've been saying that soon I wanted to get outside in this incredibly great weather
( can't ever remember a March with May/June like temps). Well, yesterday there was a nice stiff breeze blowing. Several days back I had brought my kite upstairs and set it beside the desk to remind me to keep the promise to myself.
I picked up my kite and headed outside.

The ground was saturated with the last few days and nights of rain, so it wasn't feeling solid, nor stable beneath my feet. The winds were fickle with on and off again gusts of wind. The kite would sail up then head nose down toward earth. My son and grandson were outside playing basketball, and must have noticed I was having a challenge on my hands. " Need help, ?", my son asked.
"Yea, sure," I replied. He spent about twenty minutes with the kite sailing up and nose diving. Finally he suggested we go up to the high-school baseball field, where it was more open to the winds.
My grandson went downstairs and brought up another kite, and more string.

I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story. It had been seven years I had held a kite string and sailed a kite;It was fun!

Please visit http://mysticsilks.etsy.com

Granny Goofs, and You Gain! ~By MysticSilks

It's been awhile since I've blogged about anything. I usually like to have something new, and or different to share with folks: This blog is definitely about the new and different !
About a month ago I ordered some blank scarves to design and dye. I ordered the 30x30 inch size thinking this would make for a most versatile silk scarf, as one could arrange or rearrange the material to suit what best appeals to them,i.e; wrap about the head and neck,or tie just around the neck;at any rate there's the length and width of material to play with.
As my hands are not as steady as they once were,I find it too much of a challenge to draw an image onto the silk scarves. Yet, I did not want to simply run dye across the scarves and call it a done deal. So, my daughter and I went out one of the last chilly snowy days for 6 hours looking for stencils(appealing stencils);we found not one thing meeting the criteria for appealing.

I was quite disappointed, and my back ached from all that walking. I decided to try amazon.com for stencils. In my search I found four books of all kinds of images, from zoo animals, to horses,flowers, butterflies, fish:I apprehensively ordered the books of stencils, not knowing exactly their size, nor quality.
Well, when they arrived I could hardly believe my good fortune;they were the right size for using on a silk scarf, plus the quality was excellent!
Humph, I thought to myself, and I spent 6 hours looking in the stores and malls. The theme" Let your fingers do the walking " went humming through my mind.


I washed any silk worm residue from the eight scarves, rinsed then ironed them.
I then tacked the scarves to a foam core board. Previous to that I had traced the selected images on tracing paper which I would place under the silk scarf to use as a pattern. I placed these traced images under the silk on the foam-core board, then began to use tinted resists to draw the images onto the silk. As I worked I was chatting with my grand-daughter who was home on spring break from medical school:In other words I wasn't being fully focused on what I was doing.
OK, the images were drawn on all eight scarves, I tacked them to the studio wood frame in preparation for dying. I dyed two scarves at a time, let them dry overnight, then tacked two more, till all eight scarves were dyed. On the 5th day I wrapped them in sheets of paper, then rolled the packaged scarves onto the wire cylinder and tied the package to secure it to the cylinder to prevent the packaged scarves from slipping into the water while steaming:God forbid!


The six day I set up my steamer, waited for the water to steam, then placed the rolled scarf package onto the riser in the steam pot; This keeps the scarves out of the water, and just allows the steam to penetrate the scarves. I set the timer for two hours. But I ran up and down the steps 10-12 times to make sure everything was safely steaming.
Steaming time was up,I carefully removed the steaming scarf package, snipped the ties that held the scarves on the cylinder, unrolled each scarf. I draped the scarves over chairs to allow them to air dry overnight. Next day they were all washed in a gentle sudsy bath, rinsed dozens of times, then ironed.
Next day as I began to get ready to take photos of them on my mannequin head prop.


As I draped the scarves in different positions to get the best shot, I notice to my most horrific awareness that all the images were inverted! In other words instead of drawing the images facing outward , away from the designer, I drew them facing me.
This affect will cause the observer who looks at the scarf while being worn, to cock their heads sideways, or upside down to get the proper view!!
That my friends is the reason for the title" Granny Goofs: Your Gain" As a result these scarves which would have a $40.00 price tag will now be almost given away for $25.00.
Do visit my website:http://mysticsilks.etsy.com

Thank you!

MysticSilks