The Gem Show

Every July for the past several years I've trekked off to the southwestern corner of North Carolina to attend one of the biggest gem and mineral shows on the east coast. It's held near of Franklin, North Carolina, which is an area that mines emeralds, rubies and sapphires, as well as many other gemstones. Franklin is about four hours from me, but I have a friend who lives only an hour from there, so I also use the time to visit with her.

The show consists of two areas: the indoor show, which is open only to buyers that have a re-sale license. These sellers have the strings of beads, the cut stones, and all the pieces and parts, tools and display equipment that a jeweler would need. The other area is the outdoor show, which is open to the public and these are the folks that sell lots of "rocks". The raw stones that are just dug from the Earth.  I buy mainly from the indoor show, but we arrived before it opened, so we wandered around the outdoor booths.



Giant Amethyst

Giant Topaz

 

A huge quartz crystal (as long as my arm) that has clusters of pink and green tourmaline on it.



A table of clear quartz crystals with a rose quartz mixed in.

 

Close up of quartz crystals. So pretty.



I don't know what these are, but they look like little alien eggs.

This ball is about a foot across. Again, I don't know what the stone is, but it has a very cool mosaic pattern.

Table after table of raw stones waiting to be cut and polished.

Soooo.... what did I buy? Not much this time. I'm trying to stick to a budget and I wasn't feeling up to shopping because my rib was hurting again. But here's what I did get:

Some bluish-black pearls.

I was told that these are brown and green onyx, which I've never heard of. (of which I've never heard...) Who knows if the people even know themselves what they're selling? All I know is that I was attracted to these big Wilma Flintstone beads.

Two sizes of hematite. Not the magnetic kind, though, because they're annoying to work with.



A big pile of beautiful dichroic glass from Renaissance Glass.

 

And some interesting silver beads and rings.



It was fun, but I was disappointed in myself. It's bad when your body gives out before your shopping urges do, but I probably saved myself a lot of money. There will be another smaller one in Asheville in October, and it's closer to home. Meanwhile, I have some new things to inspire new designs. I can't wait to play!

Gem Show Goodies

I drove down to Asheville yesterday to the gem show at the civic center. One of only a few opportunities I have each year to buy supplies in person versus through a catalog. It's time to stock up so that I have enough supplies this winter, when I produce most of my work.

I bought a lot of silver chain. Some by the foot and some finished snake and rope chains. I was extremely low on chain due to the high silver prices recently, but it's come down a little in the last few weeks and I was desperate for chain. That's an expensive pile of loot you're looking at!

Which makes this pile of copper things I bought all that much more appealing. I've been increasing my copper stock recently since people seem to be a little more interested in purchasing copper jewelry than they used to be. I've been enjoying working with this rich, warm metal more, too. I made several things from copper clay during the first two weeks of my recently finished class, as I had to fire student copper pieces anyway. I've also done some things with 16 gauge wire that I'll show you soon.

I also got this little pile of beads. From top to bottom, some lapis, rainbow moonstone, some gorgeous faceted aquamarine and some pearls. I just wasn't into buying many beads after I spent so much money on metal.

Now that shows are over and my schedule has eased up a little I'm starting to think about next month. I'll be gone for about half of November and, since I'm mostly a hermit, there's a lot of planning to do around that. Again, more on that coming up, so stay tuned.

Shopping for Jewelry Supplies

I went to Ashevile yesterday to the Gem and Lapidary Wholesale show. I usually buy most of my non-metal clay supplies there that I'll use to work on new things this winter. Unfortunately, silver has gone up so much that a lot of what I wanted to buy was beyond my budget. I did manage to find some things that were on my shopping list, though:

Some tiny (2.5mm) round stone beads. Citrine, amethyst, clear crystal and garnet. Not sure how these will be used yet. They could be crocheted into a lovely (but terribly expensive) neck chain for a PMC focal piece, or maybe just strung in some way.

An assortment of bead caps, cones and bails in sterling silver. No intended purpose for anything but the cones. I use them for the ends of my multi-strand seed bead necklaces.

Some interesting new sterling silver chain from SII Findings. You gotta watch out for this guy! He's young and cute and has an uncanny ability to talk me into buying a lot more than I asked for in the first place. I'll use it all up eventually, though.

And, lastly, a bunch of watch faces. I've been intending on making some more watches, so this should keep me busy for awhile!

The best part of the day was that after I was done shopping I had lunch with a friend who I haven't seen in about 12 years. I found her on Facebook and it was sooooo much fun getting caught up. It seems that we have run parallel lives since we last saw each other, and the connection was there as if no time had passed at all. Thanks, Cheryl!

A Thoroughly Delightful Trip

The house at the end of the road.

I just returned from a wonderful trip to visit my friend, Patty, who lives in a cute little Hansel and Gretel cottage at the top of a mountain near Maggie Valley, NC. It's two rooms, bermed into the hill behind, and connected by a breezeway. We've known each other for eons and our history allows us to thoroughly indulge ourselves in being good friends. We share a lot of the same experiences and interests and we never run out of things to talk about. Also, as we've discussed many times, at this stage of life there's no B.S. We can say anything to each other. You know you have a good friend when you can cry as well as laugh with each other and it's all OK. I'm so grateful for her!

Patty works as a volunteer for the National Park Service in the Cataloochee Valley portion of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. On Thursday evening we took a picnic supper up there to watch the elk. There used to be elk roaming all over the eastern US but it's belived that the last one was killed in the 1700s. The reintroduction of elk into the park started in 2001 with the release of 25 animals from the Land Between the Lakes region on the Kentucky/Tennessee border. In 2003 another 27 were relocated from Alberta, Canada, and today the herd numbers over 100. Cataloochee was chosen for it's remoteness from civilization (many, many miles across winding dirt roads - I'm glad I peed before we left!), for the forested area to give cover and for the lush grazing provided by the valley itself.

Cataloochee Valley

We got there just before dusk and saw the first big bull grazing in the Park Ranger's yard. In the photo below it looks like he's enclosed inside a fence, but these beautiful creatures are wild and can go wherever they want. They're all monitored by radio collars in case they go too far, as was the case of number 81, who made it almost down to Asheville before being captured and brought back.

Big boy! Check out the antlers - and they're not through growing yet.

We drove on into the valley and found several cows with calves grazing and resting in the tall grass. One of Patty's compadres said that there had been another calf born just a few hours earlier and told us where to find the Mom and baby. It was interesting to find out that the biologists put the radio collars on them just as soon as they know they've arrived. Apparently, they chase Mama away and put the collar on just as quickly as they can to cause minimum stress to both animals. This one had already been collared.

Cows and calves - sorry it's dark.

We went on down to the end of the valley and found Mom all the way across from us near the trees. It took a long time for her to reveal where the baby was hidden in the tall grass, and we only got to see it take a few steps and nurse for a short while before it lay back down and disappeared. They were too far away to get a good picture, but we set up our table and chairs and ate a little dinner before the bugs chased us back into the car to finish eating. Just a little ways from us were some photographers with long lenses who let us get a much better look at them than our binoculars did. On the way out of the park we came across four more bulls, but it was way too dark to get a photo. They were right beside the road -- spectacular!

On Friday we scooted on down to Franklin, NC to a HUGE Gem, Mineral and Jewelry show. Below is a photo of part of the wholesale show, where I buy lots of my supplies to make jewelry. It goes on and on and on. Poor Patty gets overwhelmed, but I know what kinds of things I'm looking for and what I'm not at all inerested in and can quickly pass by. They have everything a jeweler could ever want here, from tools to finished jewelry and all the pieces and parts in between.

There's also tent after tent outside of vendors selling mostly rough stone. Some huge specimens that I find beautiful and fascinating, but don't know what in the world to do with them. Nor can I afford them.

Be on the lookout for new jewelry in my Etsy Store. I have new things to work with now and lots of inspiration!