Tucson Report

Spending the winters in Tombstone AZ allows me the fun of attending the Tucson Gem & Mineral Shows on my own schedule and sleep in my own bed every night. I'm half way through what I need to do and want to see. Doing just a small portion of the 43 listed shows can be physically and mentally exhausting.

I spent several days at the Best Bead Show with Judy Kintner, the Bead Spinner Lady, signing my books, talking to other bead crocheters and demonstrating bead crocheted ropes. Judy and I have fun once a year catching up with each other's lives and I get to meet a wide range of people who want to learn the technique or talk about what they've done.


I spent one day at the Manning House Show catching up with people I knew. After years of corresponding, I finally got to meet Sig Wynne-Evans in person. She is as delightful in person as in email and we had a nice long visit. I was accompanied by a friend and it was interesting to view the beading world through the eyes of a non-beading male, computer oriented person. He was interested in how patterns are done and the variations of ways they get listed out. I guess you could say that beading patterns could be computer code for a beaded project.

While I was at the Manning House, I treated myself to a set of John Winter's unusual glass beads in a beautiful floral, black matte color. So far I just seem to be collecting and haven't used any of the beads I've bought from him. One of these days I'm going to have to actually use some of them instead of just admiring them.


This next week will be working trips to several wholesale shows to see the direct importers. I'll be looking for what's different this year, stocking up on sterling, findings and probably stone beads. So far I haven't seen anything really new and "Oh Wow" things. I may skip the Rodeway show that I usually go to as my sister went this past week and said she was really disappointed in what was there. The only reason to go would be to visit Wild Things and see if they have re-stocked their 11/0 marcasite seed beads. However, if I don't go, I won't be tempted to splurge on their large selection of Czech pressed glass accent beads.

It's been an interesting week that culminated in a misunderstanding of just where one could and could not park in Tucson and a $150 parking ticket..... Oh, the beads I could have bought for the price of a parking ticket!