Visiting SC

Yes­ter­day on the way home Dee and I got to Pendle­ton, SC just in time for the Hole in the Bead Gang meet­ing. Yes, we did plan it that way! I’d never been, though I’ve been invited numer­ous times, and though I may have been to The Mer­can­tile once in a past life, I don’t really remem­ber the visit.

Since it was a potluck lunch, we had stopped at Earth Fare in Greenville for some­thing to bring and for me to stock up on my favorite trail-​mix-​type snack (Mocha Mar­ble Crunch) and other yum­mies. Other folks brought really yummy stuff, and it wasn’t all dessert! I have to rave about (Jo’s hus­band) Chris’s chorizo stuffed mush­rooms — OMG fab­u­lous, MUST have the recipe if he’ll share! Krusteauz lime squares mix is def­i­nitely worth mak­ing as well. We also had a brown bag gift exchange, to which I con­tributed one of my slightly wonky heart pen­dants, and some odd game that Jo came up with involv­ing a heav­ily wrapped box, heav­ily padded gloves, and one die.

Of course the best part was the Show and Tell. Andrea has been doing some very cool stuff with cop­per and Pris­ma­color pen­cils. If you want to see it for your­self come to the Down the Street Bead Show this week­end — she’ll have some of the pieces there for sale! Jo showed off her new project-​in-​progress, which I can’t say more about except to say that when it’s unveiled it will knock your socks off! Since we’d been trav­el­ing, we didn’t have a lot but Dee showed off her chain­maille and her first-​handspun socks, while I showed the two chain­maille bracelets (square stain­less steel Byzan­tine and dia­mond cop­per JPL) I made dur­ing the con­fer­ence and my “show” chainmaille/​bead ear­rings. Cindy’s pot­tery is won­der­ful, and her sister’s seed bead work is exquis­ite. Shane (who looks a lot like Abby from NCIS!) has been exper­i­ment­ing with bead cro­chet and with recy­cling plas­tic bags into, well, bags!

Dri­ving home wasn’t fun — traf­fic, the set­ting sun, a nasty wreck off to the side, and more traf­fic when tired — but I was glad to finally BE home.