This gathering of lazy female sea lions (surely the correct term for this should be sea lionesses, but shockingly it isn’t) welcome you into the second part of my Canadadian adventure post. Tomorrow morning I’ll be flying back to the Netherlands again, and as expected I’ve taken another gazzilion pictures which first need sorting, but this one kind of stood out for me so I wanted to share. First of all because a lazy sea lioness might be my spirit animal, I felt a strong bond observing them and their undisturbable sleep. Secondly, because this observation was made from a boat during a whale watching excursion. Sounds lovely doesn’t it? Well apparently my lack of knowledge about anything boat came to bite me in the ass, because when I booked this trip on the ‘small zodiac boat’ I had no clue what I was getting into (honestly, I thought the name of the boat was zodiac). If you ever find yourself in a boat trip booking sort of situation, a zodiac might look like a cute rubber boat, but is actually a floating death trap, literally launching itself across a wild and ice cold pacific ocean at a million miles an hour. I probably should’ve known when we had to hoist ourselves into a lifeSUIT, rather than just a lifevest. In any case fun was had, a whale was observed and tears were shed (mostly because of the high speed on rough sea situation).
In much warmer and much less wet news, I had a fantastic day in Victoria yesterday and managed to pop into my last yarn store of the journey. If you ever find yourself in Victoria, really do stop by at Beehive wool shop, it is a fantastic store. I stuck to my rules of buying only yarns that are hard to get by at home, and green sock yarn was out of the question. Luckily no rules were made about green anything else yarn so 2 skeins of Brooklyn Tweed Shelter yarn are coming home with me. I’m already dreaming about making either 2 cabled hats or a nice cabled cowl.
My second purchase was a skein of true Canadian yarn, Super Sweet sock in the Spanish Coin colourway by Sweet Fiber. The gold is so stunning, I’m really really pleased with this one. Very certain I’ll make a pair of socks with these and it’ll be a great addition to the sock drawer.
So where does that leave me at the end of these 3 weeks.. Well, I finished two projects, the Pebble Beach shawl and a pair of vanilla self striping socks, both will get a bath and a block once I’m back home. And before you get all impressed by my swift sock knitting, these were cast on over a year ago! I visited 3 yarn stores (Maiwa in Vancouver, Art of Yarn in Kelowna and Beehive Wool Shop in Victoria) and purchased 5 skeins (Ancient Arts, Sweet Georgia Tough Sock Love, Sweet Fiber Super Sweet Sock and Brooklyn Tweed Shelter). Not bad, eh? (I apologise to all my Canadian readers for that bad joke.. Actually I apologise to all my readers for that joke.)
– love the rugged ocean and the yarn goodness I bet will your enjoy yourself immensely knitting with these lovelies 🙂
Your post reminded me of our trip to see sea lions when I was living in Baja. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the boat – it was not what I expected 🙂 The whole trip to the island I spent on the boat floor holding my things as hard as I could and hoping that I wouldn’t be thrown out of the boat on the next big wave :))) But it was so worth it at the end – sea lions are truly magical! I am in love with the yarn you got! So, so beautiful!
I love the yellow yarn so vibrant and bright! Looks like you had a fun time on your travels and have lovely yarn to remind you of a fun vacation 🙂
loving the yarn-goodness that you’ve bought, and a sean lioness as a spirit animal is pretty awesome 😀 oh the boat trip sounds scary – I’ve no idea what a zodiac boat is but sounds scary enough! jenny xx
Love your on-the-road loot and FO pictures! I hope you’ve landed safely back home and are having an easy time coping with the jetlag.
The yarn looks great! I’ve been eyeing Brooklyn Tweed for a while, and I know it would be the first thing I’d look for if I ever found myself on that side of the Atlantic. The colours are magnificent, and I think the whole set of loot and FO’s looks well harmonized!
it looks as if you were on your canadian adventure while I was on my scottish one…..and i, too, was only going to bring home yarn i can’t get here in the states. good souvenirs. (they count in the souvenir category—not the stash category!) happy travels!
Your yarn buying looks quite restrained. I think you got a lovely selection. Once knit, I think they will be a perfect way to remember your trip.
Oh my, thank you for the warning on the zodiac boat! Although from your description, it sounds like something my husband would enjoy because he’s crazy like that. Me? I would rather spend my time in a lovely yarn shop petting all of the yarns. Once again, you chose some beautiful souvenir skeins. Can’t go wrong with Brooklyn Tweed Shelter (although be careful not to tug on it too hard).
Once again, beautiful yarn. You choose really well and it was a good idea to go for brands you might not get so easily at home. I would have done the same. The golden yarn looks fab and now I want to see how it looks when knitted up.