March 2014 GEM EXPO Photos... finally

I've had to take my computer in to have XP wiped and 2007 installed, and forgot to transfer all my edited photos to a thumb drive so I could load them onto my new backup laptop, a refurbished and fully loaded Dell Inspiron that I got for a real deal from Anibal at PC Farm in Toronto. Personally, except for the all-important portability, I've never seen the point of laptops. To see the screen, the computer has to be elevated so high I can't type on it, I have to add a keyboard so I can achieve some blistering speed, not to mention a mouse, which equals even greater speed and accuracy. And there's my footpedal and head phones, and by the end of it, I seriously don't see the point. To lug all this around would require a suitcase on wheels at least.

Blech. But it works.

In the meantime, here are the pictures from the March 2014 iteration of The Gem Expo, which was a total hoot. Many vendors predicted a slow Friday, but attendance was way up and continued all through the weekend. I saw many familiar faces and made new friends and I hope customers for life. I got the sense that we all did well in terms of sales -- I sold out of several styles of beads and quite a few pieces of my jewellery which was truly gratifying.

I stayed again at the Strathcona Hotel on York Street (across the street from the Royal York, which is itself across Front Street from Union Station) and walking distance to the main tourist and sports venues, if anyone is planning a home game weekend). The Strath Pub grub hit the spot each night after a full day on my feet.

To me there is nothing in the world like an icy Alexander Keith's...

Crispy Coconut Shrimp with Thai dipping sauce...

Neither of which lasted long... These are soooooooooooo good!

The shrimp were Friday night. Saturday night I was debating whether to have the lobster quesadilla again, but I finally decided to try out the Strath Hamburger. It was very, very good, with a profound grilled flavour. Yes, I ate the whole thing, I was that hungry.

Also good enough to eat are my beads... On the left is Ruth's mother's homemade chicken and rice soup with cilantro, and shredded vegetables. I ate so healthily at this show thanks to her mom and for which I am profoundly grateful. Anyone who does away shows knows how difficult it is to eat properly. Those luscious blue beauties are ginormous chunks of raw lapis with very clean 2mm holes. Imagine blue chocolate... that's how delicious these look.

I was given the loan of a magazine with an article documenting the lapis lazuli mining process as it is still conducted today. Absolutely mind-boggling. The photo shows a man about to hike a day or more down the mountain with a 100 kilo chunk of lapis on his back. And we complain about how tired we are after a day sitting in front of a computer. Us and our first world problems, eh?

The sense I got when I received these chunky lapis beads from Nelson Gemstones was that I was holding the mountain in my hands. They really are something.

Shots of the table as you would see it coming from three different directions. I was kind of up at the top of the T when you come in the ballroom door...

The layout of the grids was perfect. This is definitely the way to do it. People can get right up to the beads, and there was sufficient lighting, as well. I also used the bed risers on the tables, as well. It also helps to be situated near another vendor who has really good floodlighting -- that glow of light you see on the table coming out from the wall is actually from Rainbow Beads, who in terms of lighting were still a considerable distance along the wall, but that's how powerful their floodlights were.

Shots of some of the beads... this is my loose bead table.

Detailed photos. If there's anything that looks intriguing to you, email me for availability/price.

Thank you again to all my returning and new customers. You really do make the show for me and I look forward to seeing you all again. Email me with any questions and comments.

Thanks for looking and see you at the July 2014 GEM EXPO!

Finally up & running... for now

That explosion in the typing factory was my power box thing whatsit. My hard drive must be close to eight years old -- several lifetimes in computer years. Over the years, pretty much all the innards have been upgraded and replaced, but not the power whatsit. It was either its time to blow this popsicle stand we call earth, or it was a massive power surge, which we do get frequently out here in the country. But I don't think it could have been that, because everything else that was hooked up is fine. No damage at all to them. Anibal says the surge protector worked fine -- it did what it was supposed to do, blowing out the power whatsit. If the surge protector hadn't worked, the hard drive would have been fried, as well.

I was customer NUMBER ONE at 11:55 yesterday morning, Thursday, February 6th, at Anibal's new PC Farm location on Vaughan Road in Toronto, just around the corner and south of where he used to be. The sign at least will stay the same! No more steps to carry heavy desktops down.

He'd opened his first store on the mezzanine level of a dollar store across the street from this second location around the time I moved back from Italy in the fall of '98. I was wandering along St. Clair looking for a place to buy printer ink. I'd just moved into the neighbourhood and there he was -- and I've been a faithful customer ever since.

Track lights were being installed and shelving painted while I was there. Everything is in boxes, but he's still open for business. He replaced the power whatsit AND discovered I had a huge virus and several little ones. That's what took the time to get rid of, otherwise I'd have been on my way in 20 minutes.

He also told me XP is going the way of the dodo some time in the next 2 or 3 months so I MUST upgrade to Windows 7 sooner rather than later. Oh, noooooooooooo... but I can keep my 2003 for Word and Excel. He did promise me that. I will finally be able to get a backup laptop for a good price. I suppose I'll survive. Hey, what can I say? I still miss WP 5.1 for doing transcription. All this changeover has to be done in the next couple of weeks meaning another trip to Toronto. Maybe this time I'll be able to get in a little bead-shopping in the morning.

Meanwhile, in between shovelling that pesky snow that will not stop falling, I have been busy:

These are some things I've made this week. Trying to work with asymmetry. Asymmetry is pure agony for me -- in 3D. The only way I can see if it works is to turn it into 2D -- take a picture. Part of what I am trying to do here is a balancing act in another way: in designing my jewellery I try to leave room for people to add their own dangles and more chains while still being able to wear the items as they are.

First iteration:

After umpteen addings and subtractings of skulls or not, extra quartz beads or not...

Final iteration, and a pair of earrings to match.

One of the many miles of seed bead chains I made in late November while watching waaaay too much Netflix:

100-year-old vintage greasy blue Venetian glass seed beads, tinned copper wrapping, zinc/pewter(?) swallow, plated clasps, mystery blue dyed quartz(?).

Playing with colours. The multistone rice beads look fantastic wrapped like this -- and of course I only have one string of it. I want to use the other half of the string and try it with copper wire. This has been dismantled, but isn't that Nacozari turquoise beautiful with the green and blue together?

Just wanted to mention: go check out Lisa Yang's jewellery blog. She's doing a whole series on basic wire wrapping and hammering, what tools to buy and why.

Thanks for looking!

Melon-cut quartz rondelles...

Yay, found out that it was probably buggy software that caused my camera to crap out on me. I bought a card reader and that has done the trick very neatly. I like the camera just fine -- Kodak -- but, uh... yoo hoo, guys? Your software is buggy as batshit and the fact that there is no way to get hold of you is not a good way to conduct business.

BUT... I am back in my business. First photo of first beads. I got melon-cut quartz rondelles at the bead show on the weekend. Only two strings, alas, so I will be selling these by the each -- and coming soon in a necklace or earrings or bracelet near you. Seriously, they are cute little things.

Interesting -- you can see the cut lines better in the reflection -- a nifty little photography trick I thought I'd pass along... especially given I just now invented how to do this.  

Yay to the guy at Staples for helping me out and explaining things so I understand. I also made his day -- he'd never heard of the things my camera was doing. My computer guy says the same thing: whenever I come tearing in in a major panic, Anibal tells me he learns something new he never knew before about computers because mine is always doing something completely different.

Thanks for looking!