Although the weather was not as sensationally lovely as the days leading up to Friday 7th November, it was still relatively warm in the morning, and didn't turn into rain and crap until the late afternoon. Kata and Will picked me up at 11:30am and our day began.
First stop: Michaels Craft Store. Both Kata and I had a 40% discount coupon! I bought a stitch counter and two balls of Patons Stretch Socks in the Olive colorway. What a bargain - 2 balls for $7
Second stop: Chapters/Starbucks to pick up Liz for our road trip and get coffee!
Third stop: Crunican Apple Orchard located on Richmond Street North (Hwy #4). Kata and Will bought a big bag of apples and maple lolly pops for all of us [aww, they are so sweet]. I bought some honey bee honey.
Fourth stop: Alpaca Acres, Stratford, Ontario. We arrived just after 1pm, and were greeted by Ann and Dan, and their dog Guinness. Ann and Dan spent two hours with us answering our barrage of questions. Such lovely people. Such lovely huacaya alpacas!! What a huge learning curve!
Alpaca Acres is home to 22 alpacas. When you first glance their way, you tend to only notice black, chocolate brown, dark brown and cream. I didn't realise there were 22 natural alpaca shades!
The alpacas are sheared once a year in May. Their fiber is up to eight times warmer than sheep wool, and it's stronger.
The alpacas have their babies once a year following 11 months of pregnancy! Yowza! And according to Ann, by the 10th month the girls are real moody and bitchy [laughing].
We were formally introduced to Timmey, Joey, Tia, Jenny, Bently, "no name" and others I simply can't remember the names of. My favourite was little "no name". His colour reminded me so much of a sable burmese or a mink. I wanted to call him Shelby; Kata wanted to call him Oliver [laughing].
Now for more pics:
After all the petting and feeding, we went into the little store to shop! I came home with 119g of alpaca roving from Joey, and a Madison Lacy Scarf Kit.
Fifth stop: it was just after 3pm as we waved goodbye to Alpaca Acres. We grabbed some lunch at A&W and headed back to London to make another pickup!
Sixth & seventh stops: cheap petrol (84.6 cents/litre!) and collecting Kat for the next leg of our road trip!
Eighth stop: Shall We Knit, Peel Street, New Hamburg. We arrived around 6:30pm and were greeted by Karen, the owner. Naturally we spent the next hour fondling, touching, petting and feeling! Mmmm......yarn..... Karen owns such a wonderful store!
We all exhausted our poor little credit cards, although I behaved myself somewhat better this time than last time. I came home with three skeins of Cascade 220 (orange, yellow and turquoise) to knit into Moorehouse Crocodiles for my nieces. Oh yeah, just found out that my God Child Jaycee Mae has a new favourite colour......."lellow" [laughing]. At least I don't have to knit pink anymore!! Woo hoo!!
I also bought a Twisted Sisters Avarice Fingerless Mitt and Mitten Kit in the Verdigris colorway. The yarn is absolutely fabulous - 100% Prime Alpaca. Sooooo soft. Unfortunately my camera and photography skills do not do the yarn justice.
Friday night is "knit night" at Shall We Knit. There's always plenty of lovely hot cups of tea with all sorts of yummy nibbles, and of course, the awesome company of fellow knitters.
Ninth stop: Although it was 10:30pm and we'd just left Shall We Knit (poor Karen), we hadn't eaten dinner and we were starving. We knew where we were going.....Stratford's New Orleans Pizza! Yum!
Tenth (and final) stop: 12:30am - Kata and Will dropped me off at home where the awesome road trip began. Phew! What a terrific day.
Thank you so much to Will for driving, to Kata for organising the whole road trip, and to Liz and Kat being part of a memorable day!
Oh, and last, but not least, a yummy skein of Blue Faced Leicester arrived in the mail for me yesterday! Fleece Artist's Trail Socks in the Victoria colorway from Colorsong Yarn.
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