A road trip & a new addition (or 2)

It's been a little while since I've been around this blog, but I want you to know it's totally not you, it's me... I went through a few months there where I was focusing on tasks at hand and just working through the days. Lots of projects and exciting workshops have come through the Silverplate studio over the last couple of months and I plan on sharing as much as I can with you over the next little while.

Firstly! A couple of months ago Justin and I took an impromptu road trip to Chicago. We borrowed a truck and trailer with the hopes of returning with something great. We left early on a Saturday morning, back when there was still leaves on the trees, and drove 8 hours straight (with a few breaks) and ended up in the coolest city!

The architecture was so incredible. We only ended up spending a couple of hours touring the city, but it was enough for me to fall in love with it. We'll have to come back and spend a bit more time there.

Our first stop in Chicago was this old warehouse, where we met with a letterpress printer. I seriously can't go to a new city without meeting one.

He was selling his lovely 1880's Challenge-Gorden press. It had been with him for about 30 or 40 years and it was time to find a new home for it.  I can't believe that no one in Chicago wanted this lovely press!  Anyway, I'm not complaining! I gladly brought it home to Canada.

We strapped it in, good and tight, and we were on our way. We drove around Chicago with this amazing piece of history. We stayed at the Hilton downtown, and of course they couldn't accommodate allll thiiiss.... so we had to find a parking lot somewhere that had 3 car lengths of space for us to fit in. I was SO nervous leaving this press outside over night in a city that I didn't know. We put a tarp over it to protect it from any rain (and it's a good thing we did!). I could hardly sleep that night. I kept wanting to go out and check on it to make sure someone hadn't driven off with it. The next morning we woke up good and early (because we needed to put more money in the meter), and set out to see the sights. It was like 7 am! We walked around and just marveled at the architecture. Of course we saw the bean, and a Frank Gehry building. We also took a walk down by the river which was nice... went into a Target (first time ever!), saw the world's first sky-scraper! The whole 8 stories! It was amazing. We chilled for a little while in a starbucks with some americanos and bagels. It was nice and relaxing... until about 9:30, when we realized that this was the first day that the Chicago Bears were playing a home game! We walked to the parking lot where the press was, and tailgating was already well on it's way! Serious boozing was going on... at 9:30 in the morning!!! We knew we had to get out of there quick before the streets got any busier. So we left Chicago – on Sunday morning. Only about 24 hours after we had left Canada. 

It was a nice trip. And it got even better on our drive home. It's a bit of a crazy story, but anyway, as it turns out at the side of the road in Kalamazoo, we found out that the press wasn't our only new addition. We're having a baby!!!

So I'm 16 weeks along now and totally have the energy to print again, and to write on this blog... :) 

Thanks for stopping by! More to come soon!