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.)

Phew, halfway the Canadian adventure and I thought it was time for a little update. First I figured I’d make a little picture post, then I realised I took 15GB worth of pictures in that short amount of time, so I’ll probably have to sort through the best shots once I get home. But at least here’s a pic of lake Maligne taken yesterday evening at sunset. Canada has proven to be a truly magical place so far.

So we’ve been driving, starting off in Vancouver, going to the Okanagan valley, Revelstoke, Banff national park, Jasper national park and starting tomorrow we’ll be slowly making our way back to Vancouver island, where we’ll spend the last week. Days have been filled with driving, hiking and wildlife spotting, so I haven’t gotten that much knitting done. I started on my second Pebble Beach shawl with the beautiful blue Fyberspates Vivacious 4ply yarn I bought in the nick of time before leaving. This is going to be a gift for my aunt and it’ll be one size bigger than the shawlette version I made previously.

Holiday reading right now is The Bees by Laline Paull, a book described as “The Handmaid’s Tale meets The Hunger Games”, but with bees. So far a very enjoyable read I must say, certainly interesting reading a book from a bee POV!

Now if you think I haven’t visited any Canadian yarn stores yet you are certainly mistaken! In my defence I set up some very clear rules to follow. Rule #1 is that I cannot buy any yarn that I could easily get my hands on back in Europe and rule #2; if I’m going to buy sock yarn (like I ever buy sock yarn!) it should be in a colour that is not yet properly represented in my hand knit sock drawer. The latter rule is mainly to prevent me ending up with only green socks, oh I have such a weak spot for green sock yarn! Also can I just point out that with the current standing of the Canadian dollar I’d be insane not to purchase some yarns.

First stop was when I happened to stumble into Maiwa Handprints on Granville Island, Vancouver. Really a sweet little shop, also featuring undyed yarns and lots of natural dyes, which I considered but seemed a bit adventurous to me. So I ended up purchasing a new to me brand called Ancient Arts Yarns, which is a hand dyed Canadian yarn brand (score!) in a beautiful bordeaux red colour not yet present in my sock drawer (score!).

Now I know this was an excellent purchase because shortly after taking the yarn pics this bird hopped onto the bench right next to me ready to steal my yarnie goodness. Canadian pigeons sure look funny though (just kidding, I obviously know this is a great.. western.. canadian.. arctic.. blackish birdhawksparrow. Ok no clue what kind of bird this is).

Next yarn-stop was Art of Yarn in Kelowna (thanks for the recommendation Rebecca!). This shop was a huge temptation to all my rules because there was Madelinetosh EVERYWHERE. Sooo much yarn goodness it was hard to be strict with myself. But Madelinetosh can be bought at home, and I managed to walk out only buying one amazing skein of Sweet Georgia Tough Sock Love (colourway Rogue). Isn’t it a beauty?

And that’s already it for now! I still have my eye on one particular yarn shop I hope to stop by in Victoria, other than that I’ve shown great self restraint. Ok maybe I’ll share just one more holiday pic then!