My new piggy beads -- and the quest for clear seed beads

I've been doing a wee bit of shopping (honestly, it actually wasn't that much) to celebrate the beginning of spring farming and soon seeing my first pay check of the year. One thing I absolutely had to get was piggy beads. Got them in jet vega (above) and crystal vega, but my sis wanted half of them so I don't have that many to play with. That doesn't have to be such a bad thing, actually, because I don't really know what I want to do with these beads yet -- and am focusing on a few other things at the moment that needs to be taken care of first.

Do you know what very basic colour can be really tricky to find? Clear crystal. I tried to find some clear larger (around 8/0) seeds or cylinders and Miyuki triangles to do something along the line of this and this. All I kept finding was crystal AB/rainbow and crystal lustre. Not to mention matte crystal and crystal silver-lined. Finally, I found one shop that had medium Delicas in crystal plus some other beads I (and my sis) wanted.

Now I just need to find Miyuki triangles. I want the rounded ones, no the sharps that both Miyuki and Toho makes. And that's been tricky to find as those who stock Miyuki triangles seem to prefer their new sharps. While sharp-edged triangle beads are very useful in many bead-weaving designs, they just wouldn't work as well in embroidery.

Part of what's making it tricky is of cause that I wanted to keep postage down and not buy just a small bag of triangles or seeds and then have the postage double the price of the beads. I'm sure there must be someone who have the beads I want, domestically or internationally.

(Things I bought that aren't pictured here included small cut farfalles [cut = they have a facet, just like charlottes], rulla beads, mini rose petal beads and a big dragon glass button. But they all have to wait until after BSBP before I get time for them.)