Home at last

I’m in my own bed (laptops are handy things), safely back in my own home. The Boy was there waiting for me at the airport, and he had even picked up milk and cereal and filled up the van, being the good kid that he is.

I had a lovely rest last night in my friends’ home, then I took the GO train from Oshawa to Union Station, walked to the bus shuttle pickup spot and rode to the airport, got through security and flew nonstop to Edmonton.

Last evening I started to feel a bit stuffy, but I thought maybe it was an allergic reaction to something in the air or the house I was in … but when it was still there this morning and worsened throughout the day I was forced to accept that it’s probably a cold. I was okay on the ascent on the plane, but by the time it came to descend, one ear would not unplug and I’m definitely on the road to a seriously stuffy head. Honestly though, if this is the price I pay for running hard for a week in Ontario, I’m fine with that – I had such a wonderful time, truly, I did, I’m okay with paying the piper at this end.

My next two days are going to be busy getting things ready for Fibre Week – but stay tuned for updates from Olds, as we’ll be setting up on Thursday and open for business Friday at noon! Oh, and I have custom made orifice hooks (from Wheelwright) to sell – they’ll go first at Olds, then if any are left, they’ll go up in the shop. They are fabulous – not quite as cool as mine with the captive ring, but the same general shape with a flexible piano wire shaft topped with a hook small enough to work on pretty well any wheel, even an old antique, and they are shellacked and have a loop for hanging. Hand made! Totally Canadian! Awesome!

Okay, I’m not getting enough oxygen to my brain, I need to try and sleep. First, a couple more Ontario photos…

Heron in the water at St Mary’s:

My family of origin, all of us:

Mom and I on the boardwalk at Point Pelee:

Pretty flowers growing on a trellis in St Mary’s:

Ontario, Day 7

Today was the final day of the Handspinning Seminar, which included Wheelwright’s keynote speech and demonstration of how to turn things on a lathe. My job was to operate the camera that provided a close up projected view of the spinning wheel parts or the work he was doing on the lathe, so I have no photos to show you as I was otherwise occupied! The demonstration was wonderfully informative, it was really cool to watch wood turn from a square piece of lumber into a curved and beautiful orifice hook handle.

Oh, even though I didn’t get a picture of him working today, I do have this picture of an orifice hook Wheelwright made for me – mine’s even got a captive ring on it. I saw a set of partially completed captive ring orifice hook handles in the toolbox on Saturday and exclaimed that they were lovely and I definitely wanted one like that … so Reed got out his tools and finished one off for me, right then and there.

See that little circle that goes around the neck of the thing? It’s carved from the same wood as the rest but it moves freely around the stem of the hook. I love captive rings, they are so cool.

My next stop was the GO Train station, and I had a relaxing journey from Burlington to Oshawa, where my friends live.

 

Trains are, in my humble opinion, the most civilized way to get from one place to another.

I’m here now, having been fed a lovely dinner, entertained by the Small People who live in this house, and topped up with cup after cup of tea. I’ll be heading to bed early tonight I think, as I am very sleepy … I keep yawning!

It’s been a fabulous trip and I am very glad I came. I knew it would take a lot out of me, which it has, but I’ve been pleased with how well my energy has held up for such a whirlwind of events and emotions. As much as it’ll be good to sleep in my own bed again, I sure miss living close to the people I love, and I don’t want to go so long without seeing everyone again.

In all the rush of the past week I’ve not had much chance to catch up with everyone individually, so I’ll just take this moment to send out my thanks to everyone who has made this trip possible and wonderful. You’ll be hearing from me soon, personally, I promise.

Ontario, Day 6

I should be sleeping, but the adrenaline rush is still on full blast so I might as well post today’s update while the valerian/hops blend kicks in!

The great news is that I slept 7 solid hours last night, which I desperately needed, so that was awesome as I was then able to face (and enjoy) the day.

First thing this morning I went down and got a cup of tea, and poked my head in the door where the conference session was on. The organizer person at the door said I should go in and participate if I wanted to, so I got to play! The theme of the conference is “spinning tales” and we were given an excerpt from a book and fibre to spin a yarn that somehow went with our story. I had the bit from the first Harry Potter book where Harry is at Hogwarts for the first time – the dining hall with the sparkling candles in midair, the silvery ghosts, and the ceiling that shows a sky spangled with stars. That was fun to spin!

As I was heading out of the seminar, I saw this wheel:

I stopped dead in my tracks, set down all my stuff and dug out my camera because I had to have a picture of it! I found the owner later on – her husband made the wheel for her, it’s really (REALLY) impressive. I hear he may be doing custom orders … I have contact info, email me if you want it. :)

Then it was time to get things going in the market. A lady brought a double flyer wheel for Wheelwright to have a look at:

(That swift in the foreground is an actual antique that was repaired – it’s got new bars, but the upright and screws are original. Yes, it’s for sale.)

There were a lot of gorgeous wheels.

A Paradis with the original pumpkin paint (in fabulous shape, boy does this thing spin beautifully):

A reproduction CPW done in pine; a very old, very wonderful (really, really wonderful) screw tension wheel that was at some point painted (or partially painted) blue; a Bisson that isn’t quite fully refinished yet…

A lovely little flax wheel, a marked Philias Cadorette, and you can just see the leg of a really cute little child’s wheel (which is part of Wheelwright’s personal collection). All but the baby wheel are looking for homes, and I spun on every one of them and loved them all! It’s a good thing I came here on a plane. That pumpkin wheel or that once-blue-screw tension would probably find their way into my car if it were here.

So my purpose here was to spin on the wheels and help folks who wanted to try them out. Basically, I got to sit around and play with gorgeous wheels and talk to people … it was awesome!

My aunt and uncle came down from Brampton and we got to visit for part of the morning and then have tea during our midafternoon break. I never did get a picture, we were too busy chatting and having a good time, but boy oh boy was it wonderful to see them. It’s been way too long.

We convinced other spinners to test the wheels (see, Aunt Sharon? she spins barefoot too!)…

And I spun and plyed up 100 grams of lovely black fibre. When I had the bobbin all filled up, Wheelwright suggested we skein it up on the antique swift. Now, I’d been sitting there spinning and chatting to this lovely gentleman who told me, after some time, that his career was making spinning wheels.

I was sitting next to Gord Lendrum. Yes, *that* Gord Lendrum.

So, my yarn was skeined by the man behind a Canadian wheel manufacturing company and a wheel repair expert, while I stood there and watched.

They even wound it into a ball when it was time to pack up for the day.

Do I have an awesome life or what, eh?

In the evening there was a dinner and a fashion show (inspiring, as always) and then a spin-in … during which I spun up another bobbin full of yarn and plyed it, this time on a marked Dejsardins. Yep, it’s been a fun day.

Tomorrow morning Wheelwright is doing his keynote speech, all about assessing and repairing/restoring antique wheels. I’ll be operating the camera that will be used to project the detailed view of what he’s discussing (a part of the wheel, for instance) onto the screen so that everyone in the room can see even if they are at the back.

I suppose that means I should get some sleep, since I need to be downstairs in about seven hours. Uh, make that six.

Tomorrow is another busy day – conference in the morning, train in the afternoon, visiting with some of my Chosen Family in the evening … then sleep fast and get on the plane to go home the day after! What a whirlwind this trip has been … but it’s been a wonderful time.

Seeing my family was just like coming home, didn’t seem like anything really out of the ordinary, we were just … all together. Like it ought to be. It isn’t like that very often though, and I’m really, really glad I came … because I have so enjoyed being with everyone ‘for real’. Add to that the chance to meet Wheelwright after four years of online friendship, to play with lovely wheels and meet wonderful people and make pretty string (all at once!), see my aunt and uncle, and see one of my very best friends and his family … and well, things just don’t get much better than that.

I’m very blessed, and very grateful.

Ontario Days 4 & 5

I’m (finally) feeling tired so this’ll be brief.

We went to St Jacobs, where we met up with my sister and her husband, and checked out the market and the antique stores and the Home Hardware museum and a fabulous quilt/fibre arts shop and lots of other neat things.

The information centre in Leamington is shaped like a tomato. This, of course, is because the Heinz factory is in town. Leamington is all about tomatoes!

The tablecloth at this produce booth was hand woven:

 

Neat stuff at the hardware museum:

That was Thursday. We spent the night in a little B&B out in the country … which is different than the Alberta definition of ‘out in the country’ in that the roads are paved and you can do 90 km/h (if it is in an area with few Amish, who still use horses & buggies to get around). I woke up early and went outside to try and walk some sense into my body and saw this:

We all went to St Mary’s where there is a lovely river and some spots where there used to be large waterwheels, to power grinders or what have you.

Look, it’s my family at the Thames River:

Then everyone headed off in different directions – me to the fibre conference with my friend Wheelwright, my parents to visit an old friend who lives in a seniors home (Dad plays the piano for her and it makes her very happy), and my sister and her husband to head home.

Here’s Wheelwright spinning on one of his restored antiques – this one is from about 1860 he figures, and it’s amazing. Awesome to spin on.

And I am, finally, tired enough to sleep … so I shall go do that and I’ll tell you more about the conference and the wheels tomorrow.

Ontario, Day 3

Today we went to Point Pelee, the southernmost point in Canada. There’s a national park there, and lots of really interesting plants and a whole lot of birds.

This is me, standing on the southernmost point in Canada (barring an island out in the lake):

There’s a marshy area with beautiful water flowers:

… and pretty birds:

We had lunch and then Mom and I went to some of the farm shops: we stopped at the lavender farm (oh my does it smell good there!) and got strawberries and asparagus and eggs.

You can eat *very well* for very little money from the farm gates.

Tonight we’re packing up and getting ready for the next stage of the adventure, which will begin tomorrow. Tell ya more then!

Ontario Silk Ecoprint Project

In August I’ll be doing an ecoprinting workshop at the Pegg Garden, and I need to have some samples to show of what happens when you wrap plant material bits in fabric make the plant dyes transfer and print patterns on the fabric.

India Flint talks about these processes in her book Eco Colour. She also described picking up little bits and pieces of things when she travels in order to make ‘souvenir fabric’ from her journeys, and I was inspired to try this out on my trip to Ontario. I’ve gathered up all sorts of bits and bobs, including some lovely large maple and oak leaves, a bit of seaweed type stuff growing in the lake, a few pinecones, some shreds of rotting tree stumps. When we were at the marina, the gardening crew were clearing out the dead flowers from the hanging baskets and I got a handful of pretty blossoms from the trimmings, and we found some really interesting things along our walk in the woods yesterday.

All these eco treasures were packed home and spread out on a piece of raw silk (we also went to the fabric store yesterday and found one bolt of a lightly textured raw silk), like so:

There’s all sorts of neat stuff on there.

The whole thing was then rolled up into a sausage, wrapped with string, and dampened.

The little mummified plant bundle will be allowed to sit, damp, until the workshop in August. I’ll keep it moist (it’ll get wrapped in plastic for the trip home) and probably set it on a warm window ledge when I get home. I could steam it, but this one is going to be an attempt at the completely cold-bundled process … just plants, silk, moisture, and time.

Guess we shall see what we get in a couple of months!

Ontario, Day 2

Today we went to see the seniors residence building my parents hope to move to shortly: Dad needed to get some measurements to do some planning, and I wanted to see where they intend to live so that I’ll be able to ‘picture it in my head’ when I’m back home. So that was our first stop.

Then we went to the marina:

and to the park by the water where the tornado came through some years back – they had chainsaw artists come in and shape some of the large tree stumps that stayed behind:

Then we had a great lunch (with the leftovers saved for dinner!) and went for a walk in a ‘Carolina forest area’ where we found some really interesting plants:

Dad takes good pictures, eh?

After supper I worked on the hat I’d started on the plane, and it’s now complete. Pictures tomorrow!

I am finally feeling sleepy so I shall attempt to get some rest – the jet lag has my body completely confused … it’s not like my circadian rhythms have been perfectly settled for the last while anyway, and right now they are completely mucked up. However, I feel sleepy so … off I go!