Jananas

One of the things that Jason and I are interested in is the history of body modification whether it be piercings or jewelry or tattoos or scarification. We’re not active collectors, but when an opportunity presents itself we’ve been known to take advantage of the opportunity. A couple of weeks ago my friend Maurie told me about the Guild Shop here in Toronto, first as a potential place for some registry items and later to let me know about a friends & family sale. I, of course, looked through the website and immediately fell in love with a print by Germaine Aranktauyok titled Tunilik (which I believe means the tattooed woman). We picked it up this week and it is amazing!

Germaine’s cousin works/volunteers at the Guild Shop, so I was able to talk with her a little bit about the tattoos. Apparently, the tattoos in the print are based on those of Germaine’s grandmother. Tattooing started at the hands, went up the arms and onto the breast. Faces were tattooed last. The main portion of the design identified the tribe/clan, although some elements are unique to the individual. She also described the traditional process, which involved very sharp leg bones from caribou, sinew, soot, and sewing.

I think its lovely. I’m excited that by purchasing this print and hanging it out in our house, we’ll be able to share this piece of (not very well known) Canadian culture and history with friends and family and future generations.

Sometime earlier this year a friend of mine told me about Yarn School. There aren’t a lot of spinning workshops/classes around, so I knew that I was going to have to travel in order to learn more.  Yarn School sounded awesome and came highly recommended, so I signed up as soon as registrations opened.

I was pretty proud of myself – I spent 15 hours traveling to get there (mostly killing time in airports, stupid lack of direct flights!) and went on my own trusting that a mutual love of spinning and all things fiber would help me make friends quickly.

The entire experience was awesome. It was like sleepover camp for adult ladies (with a glass of wine with dinner!). Nikol is a fabulous cook (even if lunch/dinner are a little late). The school is awesome – getting to set up a giant circle of wheels in the gym and getting to co-opt the science lab for dying fiber. We got to eat fresh eggs from Nikol’s chickens, visit with her sheep, see alpacas and even angora bunnies!

I dyed 2lbs of fiber – BFL, Wool, Merino, and a Superwash (not sure what the order is above). I love the first two, I’m not totally sold on the brown/yellow in the third, and the fourth is just… NEON. It was meant to be a colour study of gradients using Chartreuse… but, it obviously just came out looking like a neon safety sign. I’m planning on overdying it, but I’m still waiting for some inspiration.

The gym was awesome with all of our fiber hung up above the balcony to dry. Each dye lab had 15 people x 4 braids of 8 oz. each (or 2lbs). That’s a lot of fiber. What’s sort of scary is that we all came home with way more than that! I bought 6oz of alpaca, 2 x 4oz of a colour way dyed by Adrian from Hello Yarn, some angora, lots of firestar/angelina in bright colours, and several batts that I carded myself. In fact, I had so much fiber that I had trouble closing my suitcase on the way home and Jason couldn’t even hold it all. Even though, I showed restraint.

I learned how to Navajo Ply – my lovely neighbour Ashley taught me. I normally don’t like plying, but this method overcomes all of the reasons why I dislike plying, is fun, and looks cool to boot. In fact I love it so much that I haven’t been able to stop.

The top skein is 4oz of a special Yarn School Hello Yarn colour way spun up as a worsted single. The bottom row is all Navajo Ply. The far left is 4oz of Sweet Georgio rovings. Next is a mix of Hello Yarn scraps and a special Yarn School colour way. After that is a batt I carded while there that is a crazy mix of: wool, mohair, bamboo, silk, angelino, nylon, and merino – it is sparkly! Next is 2oz of tricolour alpaca. After that is a lofty 3-ply that I dyed myself in pinks, blues, lilac, and purples. And hiding up in the corner is a tiny skein that I practiced on when I was learning to Navajo Ply.

In all, I had an amazing time hanging out with a group of women who love spinning as much as I do. I missed it from the moment I walked out the front door and am already scheming how to go back next year (fingers crossed!).

I’ve read a lot of books this year, with a good balance between fiction and general life improvement/business books. One of the biggest lessons is that sometimes you just need to make a decision and run with it. You could spend hours or weeks or months or years evaluating options and agonizing over whether you’ve made the perfect/right choice. Or you can cut out all that worry (and wasted energy). Make a decision and GO.

We’ve spent quite a bit of time over the last few weeks talking about wedding stuffs and planning things. People seem shocked that we’ve already done things like reserve our venue and our caterer. [really folks, I'm a planner here!].

1 – If we make a decision now, we don’t need to worry about needing to make a decision. I’m hoping that it will mean less stress over the next year and more time for us to enjoy life.

2 - I’m trying to get decisions made now so that we can go back to being our normal, non-wedding selves. I really, really don’t want the next year of my life to be all about the wedding. Its important, but I don’t want to lose myself or our relationship if that makes sense.

3 – We’re 5 hours away from where our reception is going to be held and we don’t have free time to make multiple trips to view places/taste food. So we put a little faith into the universe and just went with some things sight unseen. The way I figure, even if we find a place that we 100% love and had visited and was perfect, etc. things can still go wrong the day of.

Instead I’m going to spend all of that energy loving Jason and having adventures with him. Sounds like a pretty good plan to me.

We made a day trip to Shediac on Saturday morning. It was all of a 20 minute drive from downtown Moncton. Sadly the weather was not cooperating at all, so we ended up trying to pose for photos in the rain. We did, however get some fun shots of the giant lobster (giant!!!).

It had some pretty awesome realistic parts – including mouth bits and giant claws. The picture below is of our friend Naomi, Jason, and I all looking out to see (even if we couldn’t see very far at all).

After playing at being a tourist, looking in the tourist shops, and taking photos we headed through a traffic jam in downtown Shediac. Finally decided on a place to eat and I tried lobster for the very first time, even if I wasn’t particularly adventurous and just went with the lobster roll.