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Last week in my weaving/fibre class we brought out the spinning wheels and I mentioned to my instructor that I preferred the single treadle traditional kind. She was all “Oh we have some, let’s go look.” We went into the loom room (tee hee) and there was one there that wasn’t working. She mentioned she might just get rid of it, and whoever wanted it could have it.

I asked her about it again on Friday because, hey, free spinning wheel, and she told me I could have it. So today I went up to Cap and dragged it home.

There’s not a whole lot wrong with it, in theory, but I am having a hell of a time trying to get it to work. There is a pin missing so the wheel doesn’t actually turn – I tried to MacGyver it first with a thin wooden dowel but it broke. Then I tried a crochet hook and it broke that, too. Hooray?

Another thing is the way the wheel was put on, the bolt whoever used to assemble it keeps tightening when it spins, so we need a different thing or something I don’t even know. We went to get a new bolt at Home Depot earlier today, and it was basically ridiculous. I will go into more detail later. Long story short we found one that looked ok and was the same size, but I was like “should we get a few others just in case this doesn’t work?” and Maine, being the man, was like “No, this’ll work, it’s fine.” (Can you see where this is going?)

So we get home, and of course no it does not work and I am sad and frustrated at this point so Maine yell apologized to me and then we went to another more different Home Depot, for reasons that will be explained later, and this time we brought some of the parts but the things we got still are not really working and omg I kind of wish either I knew what I was doing or I had just bought a freaking new wheel because then it would have all the right parts and it would work and I would be yarning right now instead of crying to the internet.

Anyways I think the wheel is also wonky because it is wobbly and I give up for tonight. I am going to go to Birkeland Bros Wool Town and be like “whyyyyy” and hopefully they can help me.

Ok so let’s get to the adventure and picture part cause I know that is what I am more interested in.

First thing: I went to Cap to do some work today but I left early cause there were people and also I forgot my Xacto knife so I could not do the things I wanted to do. But! It was my turn to feed the silk worms so I did the responsible thing.

At first I was like ew gross but they are kinda growing on me. I am a little sad that one day we will BOIL THEM ALIVE D:

I was just saying to Maine that it won’t be too long before I have some angora rabbits and silk worms and maybe alpacas!

This may be a good time to mention that I presented my project on Friday, the one where we had to take a figure of speech or fairy tale or whatever and make a thing using textiles to illustrate it. I went with The Mitten, and knit a white mitten. Originally I thought I might just get some dollar store plastic animals to stick in the mitten, but then I realized that would look icky, so I made little fimo tags and then drew the animals on them.

I’ve got some mad drawing skills, eh? I am totally not going to fail drawing next semester.

We also started basketry on Friday and omg I have a new appreciation for baskets. So ridiculous! In a few hours I made a teeny tiny basket thing that I was going to make into a monster but I got tired so I didn’t finish it. I brought home some of the leftover yarn inside it and realized holy crap this might be a brilliant invention?! Baskets with little things that you can stick the yarn through so the ball stays in the basket! (If this exists already please do not ruin my fun, haha!)

Ok ok I have gone way off topic here. So remember how I went to Cap today? Ok after that I came home and then Maine woke up and we tried to go to Home Depot the first time.

I asked the internet, “Internet, what is the best way to get to Home Depot” and the internet said “Take the 22 to 1st and then walk over.” and I said “Ok cool thanks internet!”

So for those of you who don’t know, uh basically we live on Broadway, and really we could have just walked, but Maine was feeling poopy and we took the bus to 1st.

But then we got to 1st and it looked weird! So we walked back, and went down another more different street, and then ended up in weird Industrial Town, which oddly made me feel like I was home?

Check out the old timey Pepsi machine!

So then we are like “Crappity balls how do we get to the Home Depot from here?”

Look! A Hobo! Oh wait that’s just Maine in his nerd shirt. Every time he wears it another nerd is like “OMG I LOVE YOUR NERD SHIRT SO AWESOME”.

HOW DO WE GET TO YOU?!

So much wandering! And wind! And dust!

Ok the truth is at this point I was having a pretty ok time taking pictures, but then we decided to walk back to 1st and then walk across the overpass as Tremaine was pretty sure the Home Depot was on the other side.

I liked this mound of trash.

It was kinda neat to see all this stuff. We don’t really bother walking around this part of the city very much, even though we both like all the industrialness.

Eventually we get to the other side and it is true, that is how you get to Home Depot and I am a boner and Maine was right.

Lots of sweet murals were happening here.

So we get inside and there is a Harvey’s and of course we had burgers but I thought their slogan was “Harvey’s makes your hamburger a beautiful thing.” Check out this monstrosity:

That, of course, is Maine’s burger (no veggies, double meat, with bacon and cheese), and this was my respectable burger (Grilled chicken BLT):

Maine is a monster and dug right in.

I am a lady and kept mine nicely wrapped so I wouldn’t have to touch it and get food hands.

Food hands are, in my opinion, super the worst.

You know the rest of the story pretty much except we went outside and fall was happening for real!

After that we walked to DeSerres over by the Main street Skytrain so I could buy ink to do my block prints. They, of course, did not have the stuff I needed even though their store on Broadway does (wtf) so I bought another more different kind. I don’t even care at this point.

Then we came home and I grumped about the spinning wheel and that was when we had the second trip to the Home Depot by Gilmore station, pretty much because it is easier to get there even though it is further away.

And when we came home we saw this old timey bus!

I didn’t think we even had those kinds here anymore! I miss them.

Oh and just in case this timeline wasn’t confusing enough, let us please go back in time again to Friday where we went to the Ukrainian Village restaurant for Steph’s birthday.

You get only cell phone pictures because that is all I had. Sorry dudes!

It is a little bit difficult to take secret pictures of my Ukrainian boyfriend with a cell phone but I think I did my best!

Love love love the name.

Maine had the schnitzel, which was ginormous! He didn’t give me any tastes of it even after he tried to steal a slice of my sausage. Rude! I had the Ukrainian dinner and it was delicious and fed me for three meals.

I also had borscht and it made a drip that was like a pink crown <3 <3 <3.

You should go there because you can have every day a different soup! And sweet sweet Obolon.

Hello, Fall. We’ve been waiting for you.

The leaves are changing colours and I have to close the balcony door at night. I am pretty sure I will get to wear big furry scarves soon. This excites me.

I have an assignment due this week where we have to do a thing about a fairy tale, myth or saying and make it into a thing. I was going to do the fabric of space and time and talk about gravity and Einstein but then I thought I might get in trouble because it is not really what the assignment is supposed to be about.

So instead I am doing The Mitten, which I am not sure really qualifies either, but at this point I don’t give a crap because it’s not even for marks. I am knitting a mitten out of handspun and then I am going to cram some plastic animals into it.

Last week at school we got to use the drum carder, and I had thought ahead and brought in some of my own roving. This is a light blue merino mixed with a darker kind of purple merino, with a tiny bit of green mystery fibre that got mixed in because there was a bit left on the carder. It kind of reminds me of the northern lights a bit. If I knew where my drop spindle was, this would be yarn by now.

I also got to do a bit of spinning on an Ashford Kiwi, and it actually wasn’t too bad. I had tried a double treadle wheel when I first learned to spin, and didn’t really like it, but it may have been just that particular wheel. Each wheel has it’s own personality, I guess. I may get lucky and have a wheel given to me (the instructor mentioned she might give away some of the extras), but if not, I might just buy a Kiwi.

Oh and P.S. someone on my Twitter linked to these amazing quilts on Etsy.

Photo credit

I am pretty in awe and also kind of jealous that they beat me to it, except I don’t even know how to quilt so… They are made by Jimmy McBride, you can get there by clicking the photo credit link – there are some more examples in his portfolio, but I am a little sad that there isn’t much information about the artist on that page. Ah well.

Ok guys, back to work.

I am trying really hard to be responsible this time around. I have been doing my readings and trying to stay on top of my assignments. Of course, just to make it interesting, the universe has decided now would be a good time for me to have a cold.

So despite feeling like a giant butt today, I still managed to drag myself up to Cap to do some printing for my sample book.

I was there for just over four hours and I am still not done. This makes me a bit sad.

We have to do a mix of found objects and handmade blocks, including blocks made from cork, lino, erasers, and whatever else we can come up with.

This was made with erasers – you can tell I got impatient because they are not very even.

This was also made with an eraser stamp.

It was nice to go up today, though, because no one else was there so I got to listen to music and I had a ton of space to work. I might go up again to try to get some more stuff done.

And now I am going to go have some more Nyquil and watch the Dog Whisperer.