In my last post, I shared a little about struggling to find the "right" gems - right heights, right quality, right price. Today I'll share some gems that seemed abundantly available for me this year...the Peruvian opals.
Last year I'd bought a big ol' bunch of pendant-sized gems, and a few pairs for earrings. As it turned out, the pendants moved much more slowly than the earrings. By the end of the year, I was nearly sold out of earring gems. So this year I was on a big mission for earring pairs, and I hit a motherlode.
The photo above is just a random sampling of my haul. Most of the gems not shown are smaller, but all of these gorgeous beauties will make stellar earrings. And they're not heavy, thick cuts. And they're LOVELY. I love my turquoise, but seeing a whole bunch of Peruvians together makes me really, really happy. :)
Since I still had a few pendant gems left, I told myself I could only buy what really, truly made my heart sing. I try to do that anyway - choosing what I consider only "the best" makes it easier to cull through the thousands of gems I view at the shows - but this year I was super-picky about non-earring-sized gems.
I did find these:
which I adore for their translucency (though I usually prefer more opaque color) and their organic shapes. And these:
which hit me right in the gut. I knew they were definitely worth a little splurge. :)
Nearly all the Larimar in yesterday's post, and all of the Peruvian opals from today's post come from the same gem dealer. In years past. they've had displays at three locations in the Tucson Gem show; this year they consolidated to just one. Which made things a little easier and a little more difficult, because I went out of my way to one specific show just to see them, and spent the previously mentioned three hours looking through tons and tons of gems. It's a huge time-suck, because there are so many other places I need to get to - but it's utterly worth it.
I also found just a *few* pairs of boulder turquoise for earrings. The mine for these closed several years ago, and all the rough has been cut up, so new stock in these patterns are nonexistent. But in digging through the bins, I did come across these:
they were hidden away at the bottom of a bin. And now they're safely here in the studio. :)
Last year I'd bought a big ol' bunch of pendant-sized gems, and a few pairs for earrings. As it turned out, the pendants moved much more slowly than the earrings. By the end of the year, I was nearly sold out of earring gems. So this year I was on a big mission for earring pairs, and I hit a motherlode.
The photo above is just a random sampling of my haul. Most of the gems not shown are smaller, but all of these gorgeous beauties will make stellar earrings. And they're not heavy, thick cuts. And they're LOVELY. I love my turquoise, but seeing a whole bunch of Peruvians together makes me really, really happy. :)
Since I still had a few pendant gems left, I told myself I could only buy what really, truly made my heart sing. I try to do that anyway - choosing what I consider only "the best" makes it easier to cull through the thousands of gems I view at the shows - but this year I was super-picky about non-earring-sized gems.
I did find these:
which I adore for their translucency (though I usually prefer more opaque color) and their organic shapes. And these:
which hit me right in the gut. I knew they were definitely worth a little splurge. :)
Nearly all the Larimar in yesterday's post, and all of the Peruvian opals from today's post come from the same gem dealer. In years past. they've had displays at three locations in the Tucson Gem show; this year they consolidated to just one. Which made things a little easier and a little more difficult, because I went out of my way to one specific show just to see them, and spent the previously mentioned three hours looking through tons and tons of gems. It's a huge time-suck, because there are so many other places I need to get to - but it's utterly worth it.
I also found just a *few* pairs of boulder turquoise for earrings. The mine for these closed several years ago, and all the rough has been cut up, so new stock in these patterns are nonexistent. But in digging through the bins, I did come across these:
they were hidden away at the bottom of a bin. And now they're safely here in the studio. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment