A newfound wealth

So I mentioned in the post about "Cantata on a Starry Night" that my grandmother had left me a few beads. For scale, in the pictures on the left, none of the long beads are shorter than an inch. I have a) a random assortment of stones including jade, alabaster, and agate. b) moss agate c) something I'm tentatively identifying as bloodstone, and d) a hell of a lot of alabaster. These are just the really impressive strings, I've got strings of real pearls and glass pearls, sterling beads and gold beads, odd bits of chain, coral, jade, quartz, agates, glass, etc.

I still remember Grandmother getting a Christmas card every year from her friend Jimmy in Hong Kong. Her two favorite places in the world were that city and Bangkok- I've got enough Thai enamelwork on sterling to last any sane person a lifetime--And my cousin has an equal amount of jewelry for me to sort through from her mother. Some of it is the same stuff, things my grandmother brought back for her. Like the sterling bracelets with the enameled bells that chime lightly in with a breath of movement. Some of these pieces I remember her wearing, and some I remember slaving over with the toothbrush, trying to get clean.

Most of these stone beads are just too *big* for what I usually do, so I'm having to figure out how to incorporate this new wealth. So you'll be seeing a lot of experimentation here shortly- Like Cantata, and the pieces known as "Of Time, Memories, and Unknown Legacies" and "With blood were tears".