I'd been looking forward to this for a while(like, a month). The Philadelphia Beadfest at the Valley Forge convention center. And with great enthusiasm (abettede by my mother 6000 miles away), I took off into the bright and sunny morning, to spend my limited fortune there.
Like a kid in a candy store, my eyes darted here and there, strings of pearls, in white, and pink, and gold, and green and blue and black. Stones the size of and egg and beads no bigger that a dust mote, sparkling crystals, delicately shaped glass flowers, finely carved wood, painted shells, beads made of flowers, felt, butterfly wings; long loops of yarn and thread and wire in every colour of the rainbow. Stones like quartz and amethyst, garnet, aquamarine, coral, lapis, tiger's eye. Lampworked glass in a dizzying array of shapes and colors.
And of course I went completely crazy. In the tw hours that I was there I wandered through a million stalls, each more exciting than the last, my fingers flwed through strands of multicolored beads, my imagination took flight, and a million designs leapt into life in my mind's eye. But though the mind was willing, alas, the body was not, hunger eventually took over, and besides, my credit card was almost in its death throes.
So reluctantly I left the treasures behind me. Farewell, till next year.
