Sneak Peek of New Bracelets, A Trip to Toth's & A Stunning Turquoise Score...

It was a really busy weekend. No Saturday market at least for the craft vendors, bread-sellers and meat guys because of the fair... and here I thought I could sleep in. Silly bobo. Somebody forgot to inform my internal clock, because, yeppers, I was wide awake at 3:30 a.m.

First, it was off to breakfast at 9:00 a.m. at the Chuckwagon with Brenda (a pal at the One of a Kind Antique Mall: Vendor 861 with crazy good prices on semi-precious and sterling silver jewellery, watches and doodads) and her brother Richard to fuel what became a four-hour marathon of oohing and aahing at Toth's Fossils and Minerals in Ingersoll. Even after four hours, we still didn't see everything.

You can see great pictures of the store itself on Geza's website, but here are pictures of our exploration of the backyard.

I didn't buy a lot... "only" some killer turquoise. Now, this is what really interests me: it was labelled as Pakistan Turquoise. Okay... I didn't know turquoise came from Pakistan and assumed that these beads may have been originally Chinese turquoise subsequently acquired in Pakistan, hence the label. On coming home, I did some research, and it turns out there are vast copper deposits in parts of Pakistan being fairly recently developed (also in Mongolia there huge copper and other mineral deposits being mined, with turquoise being found, as well), and some websites do mention turquoise along with the other semi-precious stones for which Pakistan is well-known, but no information is readily available on the exact location(s) of any producing turquoise deposits.

Flattish puff oval turquoise beads, some with 1mm-2mm holes:

Quartz geode in the back, two pieces of chrysocolla rough, and the most spectacular (to me, anyway) of the turquoise beads:

More puff oval turquoise beads.

Is this Pakistani turquoise or Chinese turquoise from a Pakistani dealer (in Tucson, actually) who originally acquired it in Pakistan? No idea. It bears a strong resemblance to Hubei turquoise from China, but this looks older and cruder (i.e. more "tribal", which is always a good thing!) than anything I've ever seen in my admittedly very limited experience. If anyone out there has any information, I would love for you to get back to me. I'll group, price and photograph the rest of the beads soon.

Meanwhile, on more domestic fronts, I made strawberry peach jam late on Sunday afternoon. Guess who in the background? Couldn't resist at one of the estate sales.

Yesterday I finally sat down and made a pile of seed bead bracelets and anklets for the market. For some reason this summer there was a run on all my seed bead and chip bracelets I'd made over the past three years.

I'm beginning to hate Blogger again: for some reason it wants to import photos in any view it wants to, so long as it's different from the way it was saved. This photo is upside down.

And this photo is sideways:

I'm preparing a little tutorial on how I do crimping which involves using two sizes of crimping pliers since a few of my pals have been asking. Stay tuned for that.

Thanks for looking!

Copper-Wrapped Ma'an Shan Turquoise Necklace w/ Hubei(?) Turquoise Pendant...

No sign today of my robin returning to her nest, but she and her husbird are still hanging around. I saw what might be yellow finches this afternoon. Saw a pair of Canada geese cutting through my backyard to the pond next door and I was told there will be mallards nesting in the swampy bush area at the back of the property.

Made this last Saturday at the market and forgot to post it. I know the smaller nuggets are Ma'an Shan, and I'm assuming that the pendant is Hubei. Gorgeous colours, and every pendant is different.

The "right" side of the pendant:

The "wrong" side of the pendant:

Closeup of the pendant, "right" side:

The pendant is about 1-1/4" high, flat oval. I used tobacco brown Greek leather to make the adjustable cord. 

Thanks for looking!

Choker to bracelet

Playing with beads again... gack. Made a choker and pulled on it to tighten a knot and the whole thing went flying all over the room. Remade it, tried it on, took photos. Ick. Don't like all the knots and frayed bits of cord. Remade it again as a bracelet, and I think it works a little bit better.


Dzi-style carnelian bead, facetted Hubei turquoise, copper beads& spacers,
base metal beads, waxed cotton cord.



Dzi-style carnelian bead, facetted Hubei turquoise, copper beads & spacers,
base metal beads, hammered copper clasp

 Now, this is interesting. I checked to make sure that I'd spelled dzi correctly and found a page of what each dzi bead means. Check them all out at one of my neighbours, so to speak:

http://mydzi.blogspot.com/2008/02/dzi-bead-meanings.html

หินทิเบต(ดี ซี ไอ) TIBET DZI BEADS -9 eye : Builds up a lenient and caring heart for you, helps you gain fame and benefits. Increases the owner’s wealth. 9 Eye is one of the most sought after, believed to represent the 9 planetary systems and its essence. This Dzi is touted as a window to wisdom. The 9-Eyed Dzi bead endows the wearer to expand his intelligence and wisdom. This type of Dzi bead is also well documented in modern Asian circles for its "mysticism" and "power" by several people who wore them and survived near death experiences. This bead is often considered the unofficial wealth bead. The 9 eye Dzi bead may assist the owner of this bead to become rolling in wealth. The wealth will be gained through one’s own work. This bead attracts attention and assists in causing fame to increase. The nine eyed Dzi assists the entrepreneur in finding their ideas and strengths.

The nine eyed Dzi bead assists its owner to Gather Wealth, Achieve Good Health, Success, Gain Power, Compassion, Glory, and Expelling Evil & Acts as a Protector. It is believed that the 9 eye Dzi bead is able assist its owner in achieving the Nine-fold Merits. The Nine-fold merits are compassion, glory, everlasting brightness, fame, dignity, authority, control, reputation and the removal of obstacles. Accumulation of meritorious virtue, increases compassionate, separates from suffering and gains advantage. Gathering the Nine-fold Merits, ensuring the growth in compassion, power and glory thus bringing about immense benefits.

I need to work on refining the cording I use. I priced a dark brown leather cord at Bamiyan the other week -- I think I will get a roll of that to play with. 1.5mm seems to be a good weight, as well, which of course I don't have in the waxed cotton.

Back to the drawing board. But not tonight. It's 9:40 and I have to pack up the last bin for the market and get to sleep. 4:30 comes awfully early.

Spot the mistake




Easy to see the mistake. Very comfortable to wear, though. 17.5" long.
Hubei turquoise, matte lapis lazuli, amethyst, with copper findings.



Ack... without checking, I hurriedly crimped both ends, et voila. Dumb-de-dumb-dumb. I have enough beads to remake this, or I could take this one apart... or I could keep it to wear myself -- people are always nagging me about wearing my own jewellery but I never remember to, and find most jewellery to be irritating, which is why I don't. On the other hand, this is very comfortable even if I do say so myself.

I'm pursuing my goal of eventually moving to a smaller place, if not an RV, by -- ta da! -- getting rid of stuff. I burned a great many papers yesterday that were stuffed and stacked everywhere and swept puppy fluff off the floors. I even found some more receipts from last year. But too late -- taxes are done and gone. It's still cold here, snow this morning of all things, and damp in the house from the rains so I had to have another fire anyway yesterday and this morning, but it's supposed to get quite warm over the weekend, albeit with accompanying monsoons. Good for the trees and farmers.

I've had no transcription work to speak of for two months now. It's heart-feeling-like-a-bag-of-broken-glass scary, but it always is: every year it's like this, slow from mid-February until mid-August. Every day these past two weeks in particular has been feeling like a lazy Sunday, with an emphasis on lazy. I need to get out of this mindset. Hence picking up papers. I also dusted off and set up two grid panels to help in sorting the stones that I have and want to sell.

I had a 50 gram package of PMC3 left from last fall and made up new slip. These two weeks I've been hard at work coating new bacopa leaves, for which I have an order to make earrings, sage leaves which I've run out of, and carrying on coating lily leaves and maple keys left over from last year, all of which will be fired on Tuesday after spending the next two or three days cleaning off blobs of clay and drilling the jump ring holes.

Talk about sticker shock, though. I just priced a 50 gram package of PMC3: it's now $129 plus tax. Last spring it was under $90. The last package I bought in the fall was about $96. This is madness.


Clockwise from lower left, maple keys, sage leaves, chinese lily leaves, house plant(?), bleeding heart(?), more Chinese lily and bacopa. Interestingly, everything except the bacopa were started last summer.



Closeup of sage leaves, Chinese lily, bacopa and a few maple keys



I guess I'd better leave this alone. I appear to have turned this whole post into a giant caption, and cannot turn off the background colour and text colour effects.