Osborn Fiber Studio

For the month of July, we were traveling. As I mentioned last month, we ended up coming down early for my grandmother’s funeral. So, a visit that was supposed to be shorter than usual ended up being not much shorter.

We focused on time with family and friends for this month. There was a lot going on, especially on my side. It was really good to be there for my family for once, but had some hard parts too. It was good to be together and (at least attempt to) support each other.

I don’t have a lot of coherent content for you to consume today. I did, however, assemble pictures from my phone into a sort of order, for this month’s glorified scrapbook album. I’ve organized them loosely into memory-making, outdoor time, and making.

Memories

Minimighty and Papa Bear make the “Sushi Train.” The words “sushi train” seem to have been put together especially to serve my family’s interests. My dad had planned to just put sushi on a train, but MiniMighty came up with an elaborate plan involving a menu, placing orders, etc… it was quite the production. It was adorable and so much fun.

We spent the evening of the Fourth of July in Columbia, MD in our old neighborhood, together with my sisters. It was not the most natural thing to celebrate being an America, but the diversity of Columbia in particular reminded me what this country is actually about, whether certain parties like it or not. Also, the pedestrian bridge leading over route 29 from our old apartment complex to the lake was updated about ten years ago, and looks really cool!

Leah and Dooner – third-borns making mischief.

Jared’s siblings coordinated all getting together in Maryland for the same three days, quite a feat as none of them live in Maryland anymore! My siblings-in-law are really awesome humans. A highlight of the couple days we all had together was going to the National Zoo. With 9/13 kids present, it was pretty crazy, but we had fun! We spent more time in the bird area than anywhere else, for some reason, though I did get the best look at pandas that I’d ever had.

Date night: Jared took me to Wolf Trap for The Swell Season’s reunion tour. I can’t express how special it was to see my favourite band back together, playing old and new songs. In general I’m not as sad of a person as I was when I started listening to them, but I really enjoy them anyway. And Glen Hansard has an onstage energy that I have never seen replicated. He was on his own when we saw him in Pittsburgh about ten years ago and has only gotten better.

Getting dressed up for a different date and embracing my 90’s eyeshadow preferences. Not pictured: going to Sephora with my sisters and being completely overwhelmed.

My dad’s outing pick: “Urban Pirates” – a floating show on Baltimore’s inner harbour, complete with water cannons to shoot a little pirate dingy! This was all so hilarious. Dooner and my brother’s son – let’s call him Sonic – enjoyed it the most.

I went to the Cancun Cantina twice on this trip, once to Salsa with my sister, and once for Country Swing with my parents. I decided I don’t like Salsa – we used to dance Salsa years ago, and I remembered a lot, but it’s just not my favourite for Reasons. But this was a great place to dance Salsa for sure. The country swing was harder and more confusing, and was mixed up with line dancing. I liked the line dancing a lot – sort of like an endless series of Macarenas to country music – but you have to like learn the dances to really enjoy it. Ah well. This picture of my parents is sweet.

I went with my mom to her knitting guild to support her as she gave a talk on sweater knitting – they’re doing a book study.

We met with our dear friend Rachel and her two kiddoes at a Hagerstown children’s museum. I once again suffered unforgiveable camnesia, but I will share this one picture: Dooner and I were very proud of the dino scene we constructed. The building was an old converted bank; you can see the vault in the background that had a kitschy dinosaur scene inside. Love it.

Minimighty got her ears pierced. So proud of her. The piercing place we went to was OK – one that was run by nurses – but for Dooner we’ll remember to bring birth certificates so we can go back to the tattoo parlor where we got Stringbean’s done. Significantly cheaper, I would say more effective, and less busy.

We spent a day in DC, meet up with my college friends and their ample families, and going to museums. Here we are, with what kids we could get to stand in the picture, on the National Mall. That’s the capitol building in the background.

Museum 1: the Native American museum, all curves and soft lines. A very special, respectful place, but not very kid-friendly. At least not on Mondays, when the kids area is closed.

A kayak from Nunavut

A beautiful antique painted toy teepee, and a modern Coleman model tent painted in a similar style. This exhibit was all about how plains Indians tell stories on textiles.

Museum 2: Air and Space museum. My favourite as a kid. Can’t help but compare architecture with Museum 1.

Ever cool activity: build with kinetic sand and the camera colours the terrain you make.

Scale model of Sojourner rover. As a big nerd for the book The Martian I was very happy.

Columbia capsule from Apollo 11.

Flying back to Canada, had a great view of the CN tower upon landing in Toronto. After three weeks together in the states, we had a week planned to travel around the North American plains, visiting friends and family.

Driving to Brandon through smoke and past gorgeous Canola fields.

I totally forgot to take any pictures of us with our dear friends in Brandon, but I managed to get pictures of all three of my kids with one of their cats.

Next, we drove down to North Dakota where we met with Jared’s cousin and her family – same family we visited in Switzerland last year; they spend part of every year visiting family there. Highlight of this was a day at her in-law’s Minnesota lakehouse. This is me, my childhood best friend Tina, and Jared.

Diana getting stuck trying to paddleboat by herself – my kids are confident, I’ll give them that.

My husband’s cousins’s husband’s sister’s dog, a Russian Toy, was possibly my favourite person I met this summer.

Dooner got to drive her cousins’ granddad’s pontoon boat.

In Winnipeg we had a few days just the five of us. The biggest outing was to Lower Fort Garry, a national historic site bustling with reenactments and crafts. It is reconstructed to how it would have been in the 1850s, at the height of the fur trade, before Canada was its own country, and long before Manitoba was part of it. I learned a great deal about the hub of activity this region was (and still is), and the crux point it was between settlers and indigenous Canadians. It was well worth the stop.

This is a cabin built in the 1600s, exemplary of the Red River style of construction.

The girls putting together a kit demonstrating the building style.

Three different types of Cree / Ashinaabeg dwellings – birchbark, bullrush, and buffalo hide.

Dooner in the mini-teepee she got to help build, to learn the proper way to build one.

From the tanning station. Had a great chat with elder on their home tanning methods vs. those I’ve seen in the north.

Driving in nails that were handmade in the working blacksmith shop behind them.

In the Hudson Bay Storehouse, the hub of this operation

Outdoors

For some reason, on this trip, I was very obsessed with the idea of hiking. We didn’t do that much hiking – it was ridiculously hot pretty much the whole time, and my kids are mostly not into it – but I thought about it a lot. We thought about retirement dreams, settled vs. nomadic lifestyles, and pre-grieved what it will be like when things change.

We did spend a good bit of time outside whenever we could manage. Here are some of the woods and trees and other excessively green places we were.

Playing croquet on the lawn between my parents’ house and my uncle and aunt’s house.

A quiet walk between neighborhoods in Olney, which has a lot more park space than I realized.

Attending the church where we were married, then walking home with MiniMighty, who is displaying some enthusiasm for hiking, much to my excitement.

In North Dakota we stopped at Turtle River State Park, which has a sweet network of trails, and lots of camping. Dooner and Stringbean and I took a short hike through the woods, but this place has a lot more to offer if you have a little more time.

Making

Spinning, first of all. The entirety of Tour de Fleece, and most of Tour de Fleece Femmes, occurred during our travels. I’ll cover my TDF/TDFF spinning in a couple of days, when we’re really finished, but here’s a sampling of what I did. All my spinning was for the Qiviut Blending Project, which has been ongoing since about 2022.

Through the first part of the tour, I spun a little bit every morning. Mom and I spun while watching the cycling on TV, hanging with her birds. I spun these two skeins on my CPW, which she kindly lets me keep at her house.

Two CPW skeins finished.

Aside from those five days on my CPW, I spent a lot of time on my supported spindles. I prepped two skeins-worth of blends into rolags, and tried to spin one or two a day. This isn’t a huge amount of time, but I didn’t want the artificial pressure of doing a lot of spinning to detract from our travel activities. As it was, I could always find 15-30 minutes to spin this much. Often it was in the car, or in front of the TV. This was at my in-law’s house.

This was my Tour de Fleece finishing picture, from July 27th. The project is incomplete because my plan is really to finish tomorrow at the end of Tour de France Femmes.

I was almost finished singles by the time we crossed the border back into Canada.

Really finished singles: in the hotel in Winnipeg. I started plying yesterday.

On a completely different note, I crocheted these two snakes on the drive to Fargo. The grey one was requested by my BFF for her baby; the yellow was made from the remaining yarn and stuffing and gifted to Tina’s youngest. They are the absolute opposite in every way of the usual thing I make! But when your friend asks for a quick project that their child will absolutely love, you do it. Materials all from the Michael’s in Brandon.

My main travel knitting was socks. I have knit nearly four pairs of socks since we left! But I didn’t take a lot of pictures of those, and I’ll wait to finish the last pair before bulldozing you with an absolutely insane sock post.

We are back in Nunavut. This is the first time since 2022 that we’ve actually been home when the Paunnait (dwarf fireweed) are still out. Not that I’ve been outside much, since there’s been so much unpacking and cleaning to do. I have big plans for August for redecorating.

Traveling is a huge break for my mental load – it does wonders just not having to be in charge of a household for a while. There’s lots of other responsibility when traveling, but Jared is a great partner in all such endeavors. Now I’m energized to get back to healthy food, and exerting some energy over the house and cabin. What are you excited about, during this last hurrah of summer? Do you like to speed up, or slow right on down?