Last night we were privileged to be included in an ex-pat Thanksgiving dinner at the home of the lovely Ching, born American Chinese and her husband Peter from New York.  They managed to pull together a perfect Thanksgiving meal, complete with mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey and all the trimmings as they say. The dollop of fresh cranberry relish melted on out tongues with a song of home!

We stayed late, forgoing the bar scene (which is awesomely futuristic) to sit and visit. Ching moved her living room furniture into a circle and we sat talking, drinking champagne and singing along to Pink Floyd! Thoughts of homesickness banished for the moment!

We gave thanks for the blessing of life itself; and for the gift of friends both old and new.

Roll tide! Marty

Let me know which ones you might like, and I will send you a more detailed description and approximate price of each piece.

Those super large irregular shape pearls are sooooo beautiful in person! Very different, not so many of those around, so I will only be bringing back a couple of strands, unless I hear otherwise from you.

The small double strand fresh water pearls on gauzy ribbon can be in almost any color ribbon imaginable, pearls can be in lots of colors too, those are going to cost approximately $15.00! A GREAT stocking stuffer!

Let me know if you have special school or team colors that you might like to have.

We head home in just ten days, so we are starting to be both excited to see friends and family, and our dog Welly again soon: but also sad to be leaving friends here and the excitement of Beijing.

More jewelry pic’s tomorrow! good night for now, Marty and Rex in Beijing

Its called that because in the old days, it was just that, a patch of dirt just off the third ring road where every week-end for decades the people have come to town to sell their wares. You wouldn’t recognize it as that now. Just in the years since we’ve been coming to Beijing it has added a new vaulted roof, paved it self with stone, and added enclosed shops! Much of the charm is gone, as is anything that is more than a few weeks old it seems. But the stone carvers still gather just outside the wast gate, and there you will find a mix of old and new, marble and granite, everythig from Buddahs to ELephants.Take a peek at the pic’s and see it something strikes your fancy—-the really great news is that things ship by size NOT weight, so go for it! Hope that ya’ll are all a lot warmer than we are now, it’s off for some hot Chinese medicinal tea for me!!!

This is our third trip here to source jewelry, where the focus is on gem stones. It may sound odd to the American consumer, but much of the rest of the world is very “compartmentalized”. You want gold,– you go to Kerala, or Jaipur, India/ you want stones,— you go to Ceylon, and Thailand. (in China there is one city for socks! another for porcelain.)

This year with the economy we have focused on the semi-precious stones (easier on our budget and yours). Aquamarine, amythest, carnelian, peridot: and some of the lesser known but beautifuly colored stones such as labrodite, citrine, black spinel, green onyx, and rainbow moonstone.

I will be combining these with the pearls once we reach Beijing for a new and more up-dated look in fashion pearls. I’ll try to post pictures of the unset stones on the web page tonight so that you can see them. All beautifully cut and clear—they’re gorgeous!!!

If you have seen something that you’d like to emulate, or have an idea for something that you need for a particular outfit, send me an e-mail.

We’ll work together to create someting unique and affordable for you!

We’re happy to hear that ya’ll are having a beautiful fall!

Marty and Rex

Bombay, under the British, was once home to hugh textile mills, but now what one finds are “cottage industries” fighting to keep alive. In this world of digitilized printing the ancient craft of hand blocked printing is disappearing quickly.

We have sourced our way to one such textile producer. A second generation company with some of the most beautiful pure silks, and pure wools—all done with hand blocked printing.-that I’ve ever seen!. The wools are impossibly soft! The hues in the silks so vibrant you want to drink them in.

Ms Gupta was so patient with showing and teaching us all that she could about the processes, and the fabrics that go into making her products so beautiful.

Following a designers drawing, the block maker cuts small blocks by hand from hard teak wood, one block for each color in the design.

To print a 90″X 108″ bedspread printers have to stamp up to 1,400 times, with different blocks of as many as five or six colors.

CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL GALLERY

There are 45″x45″ squares, as well as 72″ long scarves in both 24″ and 14″ widths! . . . .

Be sure to sign up for our updates by CLICKING HERE!