Hi! You can call me Zee ... I'm new and I'm happy to make everyone's acquaintance. I live in Richmond, VA and have only been actively rockhounding for a year, though I work with a lot of gemstones in jewelry I make.
I've been making jewelry for years, coming from about 3 generations of silversmiths.
My boyfriend and I got into rockhounding and started with obsessive trips to Morefield Mine at first ....but then the obsession has taken root, it seems  and we've gotten a lap machine and began cabbing as well as rudimentary faceting (great winter activity). We've branched out to Rose River near Old Rag, collecting all kinds of epidote, jasper (possibly red jasper, not really sure), quartz (lots of blue quartz!), and of course unakite (I have enough of that to last me several lifetimes), as well as some other minerals I have no idea about (hopefully maybe some members can help with identification in the future  ). We also were visiting my family in Florida and hit up Ruck's Pit for some incredible calcite clams which we've been making into pendants and cleaning to keep as specimens. We tend to not be the collecting type only though, as all the pieces we find, we want to make something out of - from jewelry to inlays for tables, etc.... Yes, I know...very ambitious 

I've been to Kyanite Paradise twice the past 2 weeks (Jessica is a sweetheart) and got a ton of kyanite - skinny as well as fat blades of it, as well as some beautiful pieces embedded chunks of matrix which have been happily burbling away in soaks of muriatic acid..

Mindat has become one of my best friends over the past few months and it's been helping to decide where to explore next. Virginia is indeed so RICH with minerals...it's amazing. I love it. Our next trip might possibly be later on in the week, trying to see if there's anything in the old sulphur mine in Mineral that's listed here: http://www.mindat.org/loc-23578.html
Curious to see if it's accessible in any way, as it looks like it has a ton of stuff, but I am not really sure.

Anyway...thanks for reading my rambles!

Welcome to the RHL Zee! Jewelry making and rockhounding work so well together. Can't wait to see some of your creations soon.