FTHL Granville Island Field Trip!

We packed up early and caught the 8:30 ferry to town to meet at Granville Island, where we explored:

• the Crystal Ark, with its polished rock room, petrified wood, and countless amazing minerals
• the great playground and waterpark (even dry, it's still fun to run around in!!)
• New-Small & Sterling Glass Studio demonstration (WOW!!)
• Granville Island Broom Company broom-making demonstration
• awesome lunch with guitarist outside the market
• ...exploring!! After which, some of us went skating at Robson Square, too. :-)

We love our community, and we love the ability to gather for such wonderful, beautiful adventures!!!
Herewith, photos:

The sand mixture is heated to a glass in the kiln, and is pulled out on the end of a blowing pipe.

He had Tali take a pinch (with pliers!) of the molten glass, and then pulled it all the way to the back of the room, hooked it over a kiln and brought it back again, leaving an extremely long thin trail of glass, which then hardened.

Then he passed around a piece of thin glass for the children to feel.

He got another blob of glass and gave Sorcha a try at blowing a glass bubble. It was so thin it looked like a soap bubble!

Then he demonstrated his own technique for making a goblet. He rolled a blob of clear glass in some coloured glass pieces...

...then blew a small bubble and shaped it ...

...and blew and shaped it a few more times...

...until it began to look more like a goblet.

Then he melted the bottom a little, attached that to another rod, and cut the goblet from the blowing pipe, leaving a nice edge, which he smoothed and shaped.

Ta da! This goblet then went into an extremely hot kiln, where it would "cool" until the next day, so as not to become too brittle.

Next up (and next door): Broom making! The wet broom-corn was tied onto the stick using this very strong cord and a foot-controlled wheel, to keep it taut. This broom was a "quidditch broom" destined for a Harry Potter display in an American Museum. Traditional broom-making is a rare art, these days, and they are working with antique machinery.

After been attached to the stick, woven, and tied off, the brooms (or at least those that are destined to be flat) are put in this vise and sewn flat.

Those leather straps she's wearing on her hands have a steel plate on the palm which she used to push the giant needle through the broom.

Then, those brooms destined to be blunt-ended (like most house-brooms) are trimmed in this guillotine-style machine.

Broom! This one has a hockey stick handle. :-)