Getting My Craft ON!

This past weekend, I got my craft (back) on.

I had signed up for a felting class a while back and I had kinda forgotten about it.  Thankfully Allison, my instructor for the afternoon and designer behind FiberAlley, called to let me know it was still on AND that I was the only one who signed up. I almost thought she was going to cancel the class, but she said it would be cool for me to still come by the studio and just go about things as planned!

Her studio was located in really cool space up in the Mile End called Red Bird Studios.  It was really interesting to see a shared artist studio set up and to see people have the space to do what they love!  It was a pretty laid back vibe with Allison and she was really into just doing whatever.  A couple of her friends showed up and they did their own thing too.


I have now decided that felting is pretty rad. I have always had mixed feelings on felted objects.  Sometimes I find them kinda tacky or overly "crafty" if that makes any sense.  But I think I have changed my mind. It was really neat to get a taste of how it all works annddd I think I like it more now.  I got to try out wet felting and needle felting. I have always enjoyed working with those premade felt pieces you can get at craft stores, so I guess it is a logical progression to try out some real felting!

I posted a picture of what I have made thus far. The circles with the yellow I made in the class and the other ones I made last night at home. Those circles are all slices from little balls of wet, rolled wool. The final results are so exciting because you keep adding more wool and rolling the ball in the palm of your hands and don't really know what it will look like when you cut it open!!! When my first one was revealed I was sooo excited. I think I was on a crafting high afterwards (just ask my friends who I met up with for dinner after... I was all full of pep!).

I have a few ideas what I will want to do with these little bits of felt. My first thought was to make a necklace with the first ones I made. I may attach them to leather and make some leather strands to combine with the chain... but I may make a little art piece in a frame because I don't know if I will actually wear the felted jewelery, so I maybe the art would get seen more?!

*****

ALSO, I just have to say thank you to Nanny.  I almost, almost canceled because I have been pretty broke lately... but fortunately Nanny had just sent me a birthday card with a very timely birthday cheque so I got to put that towards good use!!! It was such a treat to use her gift to do something creative. Thanks Nanny (I hope you read this post!!!).

 *****

Things I like about Concordia University:

Cinema Politica:

Tonight I saw two really interesting films about transgendered people.  I will post the links to the descriptions and trailers below:

• Boy I am
• Girl Inside

These films told some really thought provoking stories.  I didn't realize how political sex change from female-to-males is! And also, just the whole concept of gender is a total mind fuck! The more these people are getting into it the more it becomes less clear. People are just seeking their happiness and self love in the end but it gets pretty complicated, especially when gender is involved.

People's Potatoe:

Free lunch? Yes, please!! Here is what they are all about:

"The People’s Potato is a vegan soup kitchen run out of Concordia University. The project was initiated in 1999 in order to address student poverty. The student population at Concordia is typically in debt, and has little access to quality nourishing foods. Our soup kitchen emphasizes serving well cooked, wholesome foods.

At the onset, a group of dedicated students started cooking in a church basement and carried the food to the university. Since then, the project has expanded, and we now serve over five hundred students and community members daily from our kitchen at Concordia.

We are committed not only to serving food to hungry students, but to broader goals of social justice and environmental sustainability"

I have gone for lunch a few times since I have been here. It is a really good idea! I guess students pay into this service as part of their student fees. The food can be kinda hit or miss, but you can't really complain because it is free AND vegan.  I have heard it is pretty cliquish with the people who are involved, but that is pretty much with everything right... so i guess you just have to get into it. Hopefully once I become a student at Concordia (fingers crossed) I will become active with this some how.

Just looked at their website and they are having some cool workshops this week! Indoor gardening is tomorrow and fermentation the next day. I may just have to go pretend to be a student some more...

Bruce Penisula-Steamroller

(ha hahahaa hahahha..... just noticed the spelling error in the title. I think it is hilarious, so I am just going to leave it... lol)

Get Lost!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day outside!!! The sun was shining and there was energy in the air, so I decided to go exploring in an area I had never been to before.

I started my trek walking up Saint-Denis a little bit. Normally when I go up to the Plateau area I would for some reason always just bypass this street and head straight to St. Laurent which runs parallel to Saint-Denis but a few blocks over. St. Laurent is more geared towards anglophones/people from out-of-town apparently.

I came across a really interesting bookstore that carried French and English books on many interesting alternative health type topics. They had lots on sale, but my budget for the day was the $5 change I had in my pocket so I didn't buy anything...

After that, I went up to Saint Hubert which I had heard had a bunch of fabric stores.  Since I am in the market for a sewing machine I thought it would be good to go check out the scene and WOW! I was impressed... well, I wasn't impressed with the prices. The fabrics were pretty pricey in most places, but there were atleast 10 different stores within 3-4 blocks of another (just look at the map!!). My favorite store just had the most random notions, and cheesy old jewelry and BUTTONS! I should have taken a picture, but I was worried the old french store owner would be mad at me and I wouldn't be able to defend myself with the language barrier.

After that I proceeded to get a little bit lost. I thought Saint Hubert would cross over on to Saint Denis... but I forgot that they both run North-South. It was a easy fix (back track!) to get to where I wanted to go and I got to check out some really nice residential streets along the way.

Finally, I stumbled onto the Jean Talon Market which was my ultimate goal! It is amazing in there. Definitely cheaper then the Atwater Market near my house. They had lots of local produce, honey and eggs/meat etc. Anything you could want pretty much. I almost bought this big 5 pound bag of multi-coloured carrots for $4 but I didn't really feel like carrying it home.

I was going to just take the Metro home, but it was muuuch to nice out to descend down into the depths of the metro system.  So I decided to walk back along St. Laurent. I was happily surprised to come by "Petite Italie". I love Italian food, so I will be back in that neighhbourhood one day to get a taste.

All this food talk, I must have been hungry hey? I decided to get the good ole standbys of bagels! I went to a different bakery then before. I went to Fairmount as they have lots of variety and I got some cinnamon raison bagels to take home and a cumin bagel to give me some energy to make it home (all within my pocket change budget too mind you)!

The combination of exploring a new area of the city and the spring like weather made me super excited to be living here. A friend of mine told me that if I want a real Montreal experience, I shouldn't be living where I am right now and that I should be up in the Mile End/Plateau. More and more I am realizing that. There is so much more up there. More hustle and bustle (more cute boys on bikes) and much more culture! I am really looking forward to the summer when I am potentially going to be living up there!!!!

On a side note, I am definitely feeling a bit nervous about the prospect of biking in this city. It is intense on some streets!!! So many people are out on their bikes now.  Don't worry mom, I will totally be getting a helmet.  I think if you just stick to more calm routes, it will be okay. Also, the benefits of cycling in the city (and the pure joy of it) much out ways the potential downsides... one just must be defensive!!! Oh, I heard they have this really cool thing here called BIXI which is a public bike system where you just take a bike from one station and deposit it at your final destination. It seems pretty reasonable and a neat way to encourage alternative transportation in the city.

Highlights!!!

I am beginning to notice that it is hard to keep up with this blogging situation. I like doing it. I love talking to my parents on the phone and having my dad out of no where just say "you aren't old Moriah" and me taking a while to realize he is talking about a recent blog post.

I have fallen behind on things this week, so in attempts to catch up I am going to quickly put some highlights.

MONDAY:
-Dropped off my application to the Loyola Campus unceremoniously in the pile of other applications on the floor in front of the reception desk. I tried to send good vibes to my application so it stands out amongst the rest
-Went to Chinatown for some really yummy Vietnamese Pho. I loved the extra bean sprouts and fresh mint leaves on the side!!
-Checked out this thing called the "Silophone" in the Old Port

TUESDAY:
-Went to Spin Class at the YMCA with my favourite instructor. She has the best timing/music in her classes
-In attempt to find new (to me) pants & a bright coloured spring jacket I went to Value Village/Frixe Prix but had no luck. If I had a sewing machine I would have bought these pants that just needed to be taken in a bit and they would have been perfect

WEDNESDAY:
-Attended a "Self Assessment" workshop at the employment centre I am going to. We did a quick Myers Briggs personality test (I got INTP). Not really that helpful of a workshop, it was too vague and there was a really annoying guy in it. That morning I got a Yogi Tea bag tag that said "Live from your heart, you will be most effective" which I thought was really appropriate for the day
-Went to TWO movies back to back... felt pretty bad ass, but I figure if I am going to spend almost 20 bucks at the theatre, I should atleast get my money's worth! I saw "Vilane" (it was in French with English subtitles) and "The Last Station".

THURSDAY:
-Yiiee, I barely remember if I did anything exciting this day?! haha.
-Went to Grumpys (a bar downtown) for Bluegrass Night where they have a jam around one microphone for whoever feels like playing that night. So many mandolins playing! It was awesome!!

Okay, Phew... that's kinda it until Friday, but I think Friday deserves it's own posting.

It is an eerie world sometimes

This afternoon, I was listening to a playlist on Grooveshark that I had just made and a song came up by Sparklehorse.  I was first introduced to them four or five years ago and haven't really listened to them for a while. When their song, "Apple Bed" started playing I was curious to see what the band is up to now as I was excited about hearing them again!

So I googled them while the song was still playing and sadly it came up that the lead singer, Mark Linkous, just killed himself less then 24 hours ago...

Two Feet and A Heart Beat

It is a good thing I like to walk because, Friday... I walked up over the "mountain" all the way across town. It actually isn't even close to be across town, but it sure felt like it (especially when looking at the Metro Map! Don't be fooled by the Metro map by the way... that isn't at all how the city is distributed!!!!)

The day started out with a really nice lunch at Bonnys, a vegetarian restaurant that I had been meaning to try out for weeks since it is so close to my house. I wasn't disappointed. The atmostphere was really laid back, the server was friendly (and very anglo) and the food was delicious. I have to say it did take a while to get the food but once it arrived I didn't care anymore. I ordered the Boca Burger which is:

"Homemade chickpea flour and black bean burger served with an avalanche of fresh salsa, cheddar cheese, organic sour cream and sliced avocado (*vegan option available!)"

It was served open faced, so you had to cut it to eat it... not quite a burger... but it was so delicious. The salsa was warm and fresh, with the perfect amount of cilantro. The "burger" itself was yummy, although a bit dense, almost couldn't eat it all!  It gave me some much needed energy for what was to come.

So, we walked.

A lot!

It was a nice sunny day, so we thought it would be nice to go to the top of the "mountain". That huge, Mountain they have in the middle of the city.  At its highest peak it is 233 m above sea level. I love this quote from Wikipedia:

"At this height, it might be otherwise considered a hill, but it has always been called a mountain."

But okay, Montreal. You have a Mountain.

Anyways, we trekked up and OVER the mountain to the other side, which is something I hadn't done before so it was kinda neat to see that it was do-able.  So we arrived in the Plateau area and did some exploring there and just kept on walking up to the Jean Talon area where we were meeting people. It took about 4 hours to traverse what we did. Mind you we stopped in at a few shops along to way to look for vintage postcards, new outfits and cool art... but it was quite the long walk.

I am always impressed (and ever so happy) about where my little feet can take me.  I love being able to walk from A to B.  It is probably one of the things I enjoy most about city living. The pure convenience of using your own means-well and public transit- to get around!

After going home to rest for a bit (I took the Metro home in case you were wondering) and then I went out to see a band that I first knew about from Kelowna. They are originally from there, but moved down to Vancouver recently.  They put on a really good show in a really good venue.  The opened the night, so they played early at 9 pm. Which is really too bad because the venue hadn't filled up yet and in my opinion they were the best act of the night!  Those boys are going to do really well and have been getting a lot of well deserved hype lately.  I sincerely hope they become more successful, as they are all kind-hearted guys (and obviously excellent musicians!).

Nuit Blanche

 

Okay, so now for PART DEUX of Saturday night (yeah it's a little bit late but whateve's):

After the Wilco concert we needed to get into our Nuit Blanche mode. Even though it was midnight by the time we left the show, we still had plenty of time to do things. Nuit Blanche is an annual, all night arts festival where basically the city is the venue. Things are literally happening everywhere.  

We started in the Old Port which had light shows, a (closed) ice slide, cabanes a sucre,  and a huge dance party. It was pretty overwhelming with the mass amounts of people. The number one thing to do it seemed there was to buy a hot dog or marshamellow skewer and roast it over these bonfires they had going everywhere. It seemed a bit silly. 

We then thankfully met up with a group of friends who were all keen to find some random things to do. My goal for the night was to try and do things you wouldn't be able to do on any other given night in the city. Dance parties can happen any time. 

Soo... with that in mind we were off to "Karaoke Opera" in the Place des Arts Metro Station. I thought it was going to be kinda terrible and more humourous (like most other Karaoke I've been to) but no, it was like watching professionals. They all must have been trained Opera singers!! Some didn't even have to read the lyrics!!

After that, we ventured up to the SAT (Society for Arts and Technology). I hate to admit, but it was a dance party... BUT a redeeming quality was that it had some really neat video art installations happening. So we watched that for a bit and half of us carried on and we left two behind who just couldn't fight the urge to dance the night away.

Next, it was up to the Plateau to watch some bad TV:

"Total Crap presents the worst television and film ever made--so bad that it's good. International, national and regional TV--we have it all, enough wretched CinemaCrap and Tortured TV to damage the sanest mind!"

Unfortunately, we were too late.... or even potentially went to the wrong address (whoops).

The final thing (and highlight of the night) was going to McGills Redpath Museum.

Museum, at 4 am in the morning? Boring you say? What if I told you that all the lights were off and you got to explore the building with flashlights?!!

The museum is apparently the oldest in Canada, built in the 1800's. It has an Albertosaurus!!! AND mummies!  I didn't even learn that much about anything, it was just so cool to shine a light into a case and be surprised at what was in it. Since everyone else had flashlights, you could see some really cool shadows thrown across the ceilings/walls. We sat and just watched that for a while.

By this time it was now 5 a.m. and Nuit Blanche was winding down and it was home time.

Thanks to the Metro for being open all night and taking me and the hundreds of others home after an adventure filled night in the city!!!

Miss these gals....

... even though I think it is ridiculous they did this remake!!!