Traveling With Beads and Looms

I am in the process of moving from Hawaii to New Mexico.  I've actually been in the process since Nov. after I retired from my federal service job.  I've been long looking forward to retirement so I could pursue my passions and hobbies, one of the former is beading.  

I love beads! I string them, I use them in embroidery, as embellishments and I weave them both off and on looms. But as I said I am moving from Hawaii to New Mexico and I am traveling with beads.

It was hard to decide what projects to take.  I wanted to weave beads along the way and to embroider with beads along the way.  Finally, I settled on taking my 16" Mirrix Loom with my weaving of one of my photos of Caesar's Forum. 

I had all kinds of plans about how to transport my loom on the airplane with me.  We had decided to stop in Los Angeles and wait for my Mini Cooper Countryman to arrive and drive with our two cats from California to New Mexico.  Once I hit the ground in LA, transportation of my loom wouldn't be a problem.  But, how to safeguard the loom and my weaving during the airplane segment.  

I thought I'd wrap it in bubble wrap and carry it on the aircraft in a tote bag.  But wrapping a 16" loom in bubble wrap made the loom huge and heavy.  So, not that.  I thought I'd take it in a suitcase by itself.  But I had too much to take with me for what I believed would be a 4-6 wk stay in hotels in two states.  I had cat accoutrement to find a place for, too.  So, not that.  

To be honest, I ran out of time.  We were taking everything that wasn't shipped out in December, and it turned out to be a lot of stuff.  In the end, I shoved the loom with the weaving into a suitcase that had other odds and ends in it and took off.

I've just had time to unearth the loom and inspect the weaving.

There were a couple of problems, but they are easily fixed. In the very first row and the 6th row the beads shifted so some of the spaces between the warps are empty.  I will just run a thread through all the beads again to fix the problem.  Thankfully, the warp didn't come off or the beads break. 

The beads I am using were packaged like this:

I put one container stacked on top of the other and wrapped both together with packing tape.  A few of the beads from the top container escaped, but all in all, it was a good way to travel with beads.

Now, I am in a hotel in Los Angeles and this is what my set up looks like:

Further updates later on!