November 28, 2010

balls, balls, balls

Over the years I seem to have collected enough balls to now call it a collection. Everything from clay, glass, plastic and gemstone.
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Finding display artifacts has been a challenge and I think I like the old manufacturing parts holder and candlesticks the best. In NH I also have a steam-bent wooden container full of smaller balls.
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This is one that I'd love to have, but alas .....

no room for something that big, nor the $8,000 to make it mine.

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So here's a quandary. Last year I bought the small set of pool balls at a flea market and yesterday I found the larger vintage set. I only want 4 balls out of each set, leaving 24 orphaned balls. The large vintage set from Belgium is probably worth about $75 according to eBay.
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Should I split the big ball set up or try and resell them as a whole set? Gary Wilson, gem/rock wizard, from Tucson Gem show says the older pool balls are solid color and he cuts them up for cabs and other jewelry items. Should I chance it and cut into one of the vintage balls and see if they are solid color or not? I really don't have the space to store the extra balls as it would mean taking space that beads would occupy.
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Maybe one of you might like to buy my extras (1 or more) and relieve me of having to agonize over splitting something that maybe shouldn't be split? Comments on what to do would be welcomed - please.....

November 22, 2010

Settling in for the Winter

It took the quail less time to settle back in than I have. We got back to Arizona Sat. evening, put some bird seed out on Sunday and this morning nine quail were here for breakfast. It was 30 degrees overnight and the quail had their feathers all fluffed up, looking like big puff balls. They are so much fun to watch every winter.


Now that it's Monday, I can run over to Sierra Vista this afternoon to re-stock my own pantry and look at the new addition to the town - great big, brand new, huge super Wal-Mart. Oh what fun!

While I was gone the burned out house to the East of mine was bulldozed down. Now I can see Tombstone's Courthouse from the beadroom. It also lets in a lot more morning sun. Nice bright Arizona sun in a clear blue sky, that's one of the big reasons for being here in the winter. I probably have a touch of SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and the light filled days always make me feel better with tons more energy.


Then, to get filled in on all the local gossip, I'll go have coffee with my neighbor on the West. She was my high school room mate from Illinois. We often comment on fate; who would ever have thought we'd be wintering next door to each other in Arizona 47 years later?
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I'll leave you with a photo of my welcome home visitor......
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Last night, I looked up and this guy was sitting on top of the window molding. He got caught in a jar while I did my best to find out if it was a dangerous spider. Turns out that we think it's a 3" Huntsman Spider, not dangerous, but beneficial. So, I evicted him outside, across the road.

November 21, 2010

Back in Tombstone


The sun is bright, it's high 60's, there are mountains on the horizon and I'm back in Tombstone AZ for the winter. The house was opened back up for me, but the yard needs lost of work right away. The grass and tumbleweeds are thigh high, evidence of a good monsoon season this summer.




We didn't find any outstanding things to stop and look at on the trip across country. However, just the country is always worth looking at. I had heard of the Dismal Swamp and the name always fascinated me. It's nothing like the New Orleans swamps as it's almost more tidy than what I think a swamp should be.





Here are the remains of an old gas station in Texas. I loved the sign on the door which advised one that the Sheriff's posse would most certainly chase you with guns drawn if you defaced the building.


The old Texas county seat, courthouses were beautiful in fanciful brick and high towers. By the time I decided I needed to photo at least one of them, what we saw were modern buildings. It's not the first time this has happened and I seem to have a list of missed photographs.

Once you got west of the Mississippi River you really begin to notice the sky and watch the weather approach. We were lucky that we only hit spitting rain and heavy overcast on just two days of the 9 day trip.


We had to drive through the White Sands National Monument once again. We wanted to test a lingering New England mindset that driving on something that white would be slippery. They plow it like snow, it looks like snow, but it is white gypsum sand. Funny how the subconscious tells you one thing when reality is something else.

I love the patterns that the wind makes on the dunes. It's too bad that there were so many people prints in the dunes that it was difficult to find unspoiled wind patterns like this.
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I was tired of sitting in the car at around day 7. I had finished all of my pre-strung bead crochet, my body wanted to do something besides sit and I got more than a bit cranky. I was tired of strange motel beds and even stranger motel decor like bright pink bed sheets and swagged drapes with huge tassels. Granted, we got off of the interstate and looked for clean, cheap motel rooms. Too bad that they tried to modernize 1950's motels and just missed the mark most of the time.
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It's good to be back in the South West where there are mountains on every horizon, it's warmer than New Hampshire and there is abundant sunshine. It'll take a couple of days to re-stock the pantry, clean up the house and get back into work/beading/designing mode. But first will be Thanksgiving with my sisters, nephews, nieces, grand-nephews and general crazy family.

November 10, 2010

Over and Out . . .


The bead cabinet is empty, so is the fridge and we're 95% packed. We'll pic-nic here in the house tonight, winterize it tomorrow and leave by noon.



See you all on the other side of the country in the wild west of Arizona sometime around Thanksgiving.
Shutting down the computer after this blog post.
Open road, here we come.

November 6, 2010

Heading West

It's time to pack up the car and head to Tombstone AZ for the winter. It's getting so we've less and less light and lots colder temps here in NH. Gray, overcast, wintry-like days just give me the shivers. Tomorrow I'll start cleaning the studio and packing the beads into their travel bags.


This week I'll be putting the house into cold storage mode and hope to be on the road by next weekend. It takes longer to shut the NH house down for the winter than it does shutting the AZ house up for the summer. So many little details of things that might freeze.


We're going to try again to do the Chesapeake bay bridge and hope that nasty weather doesn't shut us out of that route like it did last year. Then we'll do a swing through the Carolina's. Georgia, Alabama and visit friends in Memphis. From there we'll head mostly west to Arizona. I've never visited some of the Eastern seaboard, so it'll be a good change of route.

This was my NH yard in 1997 and I'm getting too old to navigate in these conditions any more.
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This blog will probably lie dormant for the next month, but I'll post travel updates to FaceBook as I progress across country.

November 3, 2010

Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes

It's done


is now complete and available from Bead Patterns as an e-book for $19.95.


It has take me 5 years of procrastination, trial and error crocheting, and collaboration on a software design program to bring this book to actuality. It contains a new way of graphing rope patterns; one that allows you to see your patterns as they really are. This is a stepping stone to being able to design patterns that run parallel to a rope, especially dimensional ropes. Flat Caterpillars, Triangular ropes, Square ropes and other parallel patterns will be easier to see on the Zipper Graph.
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Comments and photos of what you crochet using this book will be welcomed. As it was designed as an e-book, I did not include a gallery. I would like to put a Gallery on Bead Line Studios web site. So, please let me see what you come up with using this information.
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Enjoy
...and now I can pack for Arizona and a couple of weeks vacation on-the-road.