A couple of hours at the bead show

This was the weekend of the September bead shows. It used to just be one G&LW show, but people are trying (in vain) to turn it into a miniature version of February. There are now two G&LW shows, a Best Bead Show, and a Beaucoup Conge show (actually, I don't know if they had that one this year, their shows are so small that I don't pay attention to them).

Although I had pre-registered for the G&LW show back when I registered for the February shows, I decided to skip it. I would have been too tempted to spend lots of money stocking up on crystals, and other than said crystals, there wasn't much I wanted at that show. The one I went to a couple of years ago was mostly finished jewelry and stone beads.

I enjoy the Best Bead show, however, as it's very laid-back and there's always lots of eye candy. It's a very small show, though, and this year a lot of the vendors who were there last year were absent. I'm not sure if the show was smaller, I think they may have replaced all of the missing vendors.

The main reason that I went to the show was to see local lampworker Margaret Zinser, who is a great beadmaker and a fun person. In fact, I feel pretty lucky to have such a talented artist in my hometown, because it means she's always at the shows! I love her beetle beads, and I was excited to see that she's now making large beads decorated with lots of tiny beetles. Way out of my budget for this particular show, but fun to drool over. I ended up buying a pretty set of barrel-shaped beads from her (which I already have a plan for) and some little spacers to put in earrings.

I intended to just window shop the rest of the show, but Chris did his usual arm-twisting to make me buy a few more things. Well, actually, he didn't have to twist me at all to get me to buy the strand of coins. Do you know how hard it is to find those things? Every belly dance costume supply place that I've seen only carries the cheap stamped ones. In fact, I really should have bought 2 or 3 strands, so I'd have plenty to make a bra some day, but oh well. I got the imitation dZi bead from the same vendor. I know the different designs have different meanings, I'll have to research what mine means. I just liked the colors. I have some Afghani jade that will go perfectly with it.

The cabs were my real splurge, however. They were just so pretty and Chris insisted that I should buy them, even though they were way more than I usually spend on cabs. The black-looking one is fire obsidian, and it has beautiful flashes of browns and oranges and hints of green. The greyish looking one is a pyritized ammonite, which has a nice spiral pattern from the shell. And the triangle one is actually drilled, so I can use it as a bead or a cab, and I think the receipt says that it's Binghamite. It looks kind of like quartz with tiger's eye or some other chatoyant golden stone through it.

I also bought some thread, but that was too boring to photograph ;) I got a great deal on Nymo, the primary thread that I use for my woven work, and I bought another spool of the cord that I used to make that notted necklace, this time in black. I wanted some green, too, but I didn't like any of the greens available. Well, correction. I liked them, but they wouldn't have coordinated very well with many beads.

And just for fun, here's a picture of what I bought in Flagstaff: