Blue in the rough
Blue-green fire in crystal opal — and why this piece is still sitting on the shelf.
This piece came in on matrix and hasn't moved since. The color is there — blue and green, clean, running across the full face — and that's exactly why it's sitting. Good rough sits until you know what you're doing with it.
The body is crystal — nearly transparent, glassy. Ethiopian Welo crystal material like this lets you see the color bar from multiple angles without cutting anything. You can see through the stone and watch where the fire stops, where the dead zones are, where the best concentration sits. That's a luxury black opal doesn't give you; the body is opaque and you're reading the surface only.
The case for waiting
Cutting rush is a real thing in lapidary. You get a new piece, the fire is vivid, and you want to get it on the wheel. The pieces that get cut too fast are usually the ones that get cut wrong — wrong orientation, wrong dome height, wrong final shape relative to where the color actually lives. With crystal material especially, where the transparency shows you so much before you start, there's no excuse for not watching the rough long enough to have a plan.
This one stays on the shelf until the orientation is obvious. The blue-green fire is good enough to deserve the wait.