Thinking Outside the Basket – Page 3

Category: Thinking Outside the Basket (page 3 of 3)

Community at Craigleith Depot

2018-03-02 / Andrea / 0 Comments

One of my favourite spots here in the Blue Mountains is our Craigleith Depot. It was a railway station, and we are a train-loving family thanks to my Dad. I imagine the generations of residents and visitors coming in and out of the station over the years. From the Petun First Nations to the settlers, I am always fascinated with the human history of our area.

Today the Depot it is not just our town’s history museum but it is a hub of our community with all sorts of programming and monthly meetings. I have joined the Blue Mountains Writers’ Group as a newly minted blog writer to exchange inspiration with other local writers of all levels of expertise. I also attend the monthly Sweetwater Meditation Circle. La Mer Douce was Champlain’s name for Georgian Bay and translates as Sweetwater Sea. It is a highlight of my week to meet with such great welcoming people, and I miss our meetings when I’m teaching in Niagara! Check out the museum’s calendar for these groups and neat films etc.

2017-12-16

Off the beaten path … here I will post about other crafting adventures and topic that are NOT about baskets.

Splitting My First Stone

2017-11-30 / Andrea / 0 Comments

After taking the Drystone Canada workshop, I tried my hand at splitting a rock back home.

Blacksmith workshop at Wareham Forge

2017-11-30 / Andrea / 0 Comments

Heating my first S hook!

All of the projects from the weekend: Fire poker; S hooks, organically-shaped wall hook; and leaf-shaped handles (not yet bent).

Of my List of 50, this experience was a real highlight! I learned about blacksmithing and spent a totally hands-on weekend at the Wareham Forge with expert blacksmith artist Darrell Markewitz. He runs weekend introductory & intermediate workshops with just 4 students at a time working at two forges. Darrell’s teaching technique is adaptive and empowering for everyone, no matter one’s physical strength or ability to to pick up skills. He paces each project out step-by-step between a demo and back to the forge to do our own. By Sunday afternoon, we were able to pursue a last project independently. I am so lucky to be living only a half hour north of Wareham Forge because that was not my last trip there!

Projects from the workshop weekend.

The coal forge we learned to stoke and used all weekend.

Dry Stack Stone Wall Workshop with Drystone Canada

2017-11-29 / Andrea / 0 Comments

Walling Workshop, Scottsdale Farm, Georgetown, Ontario

In October 2017. I participated in a Dry Stone Canada walling workshop and learned techniques while rebuilding an old stone wall on the historic Scottsdale Farm.

Thanksgiving Centrepiece

2017-10-29 / Andrea / 0 Comments

DIY 2-story Drystacked Fireplace

2017-05-29 / Andrea / 0 Comments

This was a satisfying DIY project at home. We could not afford a real stone fireplace but these concrete dry stack blocks look great. I did use stones from the property to mortar a hearth- complete with a fossil, granite , limestone and shale. The glaciers picked up so much rock as it cruised through this old lake bed, that it dropped so many varieties into our earth!