This was written by Teri Packel.

She's one of the most amazing beaders I know. Almost everything I know about peyote stitch I learned from watching her and being inspired by her.

Thank you again for letting me share this Teri!

"Just last month I had my first opportunity to fly since 9-11. Not wanting to fly without my beads, I started planning early.

I knew that my little scissors would not make it into my carryon and I didn¹t think that my gun case would be looked at favorably, no matter how many cute stickers I put on it. The scissors replacement was fairly easy, I had baby nail clippers, the ones without a file and I also had a little blue needle threader that had a razor thread cutter section on it. OK I can cut my thread, now how do I carry my beads...

I remember seeing an article in ³Beadwork² or ³Bead and Button² on turning a CD case into a portable bead carrier, just big enough to hold a porcelain bead tray. After about three days of looking I found a perfect black and lavender CD case on the clearance table at K-Mart. (Cute and inexpensive) I found 1/2 inch foam rubber at JoAnn¹s Fabrics and just used double sided tape to keep it all together. It worked GREAT! Large enough to hold a project and small enough to just drop into my carryon.

Everything else fit into a soft sided needle craft case that had 24 clear zippered pockets. A very cool case, and I hope to find another one for my daughter.

Pliers, wire cutters and scissors went into the suitcase so that I didn¹t have to worry about losing them to airport security. I was set to go. Anchorage security was pretty easy, everything got x-rayed or was put through a metal detector, the only thing that even got double checked were my sandals.

The flight to Salt Lake City was fairly empty so I had a nice block of three seats to spread out in. As soon as the seat belt sign was off-out came the beads! I was working on a flat round peyote mirror in colors way out of my normal range - bright yellow, orange, red, purple and fuchsia. Next thing I know I have flight attendants talking to me and digging (with my permission of course) through my cool zippered case to see just what beads that I couldn¹t leave home without. It turns out that we have two beaders in the flight crew (we are everywhere), the rest of the flight was wonderful. I answered dozens of questions, I let people ooh and aah over my beads and beadwork, I felt very important. I was even given the name of a few bead stores in Salt Lake to check out when I got there.

(BTW I had fun looking in these stores and nothing against them, but we are very spoiled up here in Anchorage.)

Now the flight home was a little different, Salt Lake has a LOT of airport security, probably left over from the winter Olympics. ALL my luggage and my hands were checked for explosive residue before I even got to the airline counter. I was then escorted to the counter and allowed to get my ticket, SUPRISE you have been chosen for a random suitcase x-ray search. There goes my suitcase, through the giant x-ray machine. Now I am allowed to go to the security gate.

My purse and carryon go through the little x-ray machine and I step through the metal detector,(no beeps) and I get pulled aside for a check on the metal handles of my carryon, more residue I think.

Now I decide I need coffee. And a danish!

Less than thirty minutes later I am ready to get on the plane and go home, my seat numbers are called and SUPRISE you have been chosen for a random security check. I get called into a blocked off area and my purse and carryon are hand searched by two very nice women, I asked them to be careful of the beads and they were, but I am still glad that my cool case has clear zippered pockets so they didn¹t have to open all of them. I got scanned by the wand and my sandals were removed and scanned. I got through all of this with a smile (thank you Prozac) and was sent on my way.

Now just imagine what might have happened if I was carrying 2 inch scissors and a gun case."

(From Shala)The mirror turned out fantastic by the way. I'm planning on getting a picture soon, also planning on begging her to explain the basics of how she did it for everyone!