Tucson 2011 - Day 2

In the rush to find a hat, gloves, heavy socks and my winter coat, I forgot my camera. Low temperature records were broken all over southern Arizona. Wednesday night posted 5 degrees here in Tombstone and I lost most of my huge Nopal cactus. The poor thing looks very sad today. Water pipes were frozen & burst all over the place. Add to this interrupted natural gas supplies and daytime temps that hardly got out of the 20's. The Mayor of Tucson declared a sever weather emergency and closed all non-essential services & schools. Outside Gem Show vendors were either closed or wrapped in blankets or anything warm they could scare up.

I spent an hour at To Bead True Blue and it was a frustrating show as their vendor list didn't match the map and they couldn't tell me where people I wanted to see were. The layout was not good either as you couldn't flow from one place to another. Booths were tucked behind large plants, in odd corners and other out of the way places. I saw who I needed to see and left.

I was after some more 8/0 Toho nickel seed beads. Funny thing happened as a whole 4.5 lbs of seed beads got into my basket. They just jumped right in and said, "I'm going with you!" I picked up a couple of the newer Hybrid colors - luscious little things. Crystal AB - what the heck was I thinking? I don't do much with whites, but oh the sparkle. Must have been that AB sparkle.



I spent the afternoon at The Best Bead Show, meeting people and signing the new book, Triangular Bead Crochet Ropes". Which is now available in paper format from Amazon.

I've now restocked my stash of daggers and lentils. The Czech's are doing a glass that looks like a cross between moss agate and opal. So I now have daggers to go with some other shapes I bought Monday.

I saw slices everywhere at both shows. Sliced and tumbled glass bottle rings; slices of geodes, slices of other rocks and glass with large center holes. Large lamp worked glass rings as well as the same in resin. I'm wondering if some of those might work along with my black wire work experiments. I may have to get a few when I go back to Best Bead on Saturday and see what works. Or I need to figure out how to slice a bottle up and throw the rounds in my tumbler.

The weatherman promises that it will warm up now. I sure hope so as this area is ill equipped to handle sub-freezing temps. I guess I shouldn't complain as it happens about once in a hundred years. It could have held off in my lifetime.