i went with the gaggle (samson, bryce, and owen) to the pinawa dam last sunday for a day trip. we wanted to escape the city, and having samson in from nova scotia was a perfect excuse to go visit the pinawa dam, which sits a little over an hour outside of winnipeg. it's currently still the off-season, which meant we had very few interruptions from other visitors during our adventuring. it also meant that the weather was cold enough to keep the water mostly frozen without being unbearably cold. all of that is a good thing, because we wandered all over the place and took our time for photo ops. samson and owen both had their cameras, and samson transferred a number of his finished photos to me after the fact because we shot two upcoming patterns during the day.

the pinawa dam is now derelict, and has been turned into a provincial park, making it a really great location for unschooling trips and outings with friends or family. there are informative plaques scattered around the area, but i was more interested in scoping out the different plants that i'll return to later in the year when i start foraging again. i did come home with some twigs, a clump of deer hair we found caught on the side of some of the concrete, and moss that fell off the side of the dam. bryce walked me through how to read the river if you were to try rafting down it (tip: this particular part of the river requires some portaging), and after several hours of wandering, we ended the day with a visit to my parents' for supper. my parents have now unofficially adopted the whole gaggle, in case you were wondering.

i'm working on making myself a handmade wardrobe that fits into as many life scenarios as possible, which means curating outfits that can easily transfer between meetings in the city to foraging in the woods to long days of flying for work travel. i also have to factor in the time it takes to make new items, so the growth of my wardrobe is happening slowly for the most part, but i would say that wardrobe on this day trip was pretty close to perfect. i wore my oxidized socks over rtw (ready-to-wear) tights) inside my blundstones, my linen zinnia skirt, an upcoming sweater design (it'll be available on april 13, if you're curious), one of my naturally dyed organic cotton scarves (dyed with needles from my xmas tree, actually), and my spruce hat, and layered my thrifted wool ruana over top as needed and carried everything i needed (including my knitting) in one of my foraging baskets from my friends over at studio octav. a friend noted last summer that i look like i probably wear the same things in the city as i do while camping, and honestly that's kind of my end goal.

how do you feel about wearing your handmade items out on nature-based adventures?