Pacafiesta Weekend

Last weekend was Pacafiesta Weekend for my friend, Line, and I. We made plans to have a knitting weekend in Halifax which consisted of visiting the Pacafiesta event, all the yarn shops in Halifax and lots of knitting.

Started off first thing Saturday morning heading to Halifax with mapquest maps in hand. Line was driving so I was lucky enough to be the knitting navigator (knitting Lavendar Jaywalkers).
We arrived at Pacafiesta at about 10:30am and couldn't leave until close to 2pm! It was fabulous! I was in heaven surrounded by amazing animals and tons of natural fibers and yarns... what more could you ask for. I'd never realized how great alpaca is, and after meeting a few of them, I liked the yarn even more. And the angora goats! Wow, they have the best natural perm I've ever seen! Alpacas have the funnest head ruffles that just makes you want to reach out and ruffle the hair on their head.

And the colors! WOW! The colors of browns and beiges are just fabulous. Line and I bought a pattern from Lucy Neatby for a Falling Leaf scarf and some Alpaca to go with it. We are going to make it as a memento project to the knitterly weekend we enjoyed together.

After the exhibition place we headed out to Peggy's Cove and had lunch there. Of course I knitted on the way there and couldn't resist knitting on the rocks.





Back to Halifax we went, following our handy mapquest map that was going to lead us directly to our hotel across the bridge in Dartmouth. We were navigating like pros when we arrived at the bridge, where our hotel was directly on the other side, and there was a huge sign saying "Bridge Closed". Now what?! I quickly mapped out a new path to the other bridge way out of our way and off we went. At one point I said lets turn left here... It was Younge Street. We both realized at the same time that Younge street was where LK Yarns was, one of the Halifax knitting stores we thought we wouldn't make it to because it closed at 5pm on Saturday and was not open on Sundays. It was 4:30pm when we drove right up to LK Yarns, the knitting gods were actually on our side and had closed a bridge for us to arrive at this small, but packed, knitting shop. There was so much to look at it was overwhelming. Luckily, Line had a goal of buying sock yarn so that kept us focused. But there was so much sock yarn! How to pick just one brand and colorway? Well once again, luck was on our side, and there was some on sale for $5 for a 50g ball and it was self patterning in all sorts of colors. I left with 6 balls (3 socks worth) and Line left with 4 (this will be her first fingering weight socks so it's best to stay reasonable).
Off we went to the Hotel, making a short stop for a nice italian bottle of red wine. We checked in, opened the wine and relaxed with some knitting. Line cast on her first pair of socks! That was really exciting!
Here is the piles of loot we bought that Saturday:

Note the purple needle holders.. they matched my travelling sock kit.



Line's purchases:

Falling Leaves pattern from Lucy Neatby, sock yarn in cotton and wool, chocolate brown Huacaya alpaca, and some really nice bamboo 2.5mm double pointed needles

My loot:

Creative merino in Expresso from Lucy Neatby, Needle holder, Scarf pattern from Ilga Leja, 1 skein of chocolate brown Huacaya Alpaca, 6 balls of self patterning sock yarn

So much more happened after our relaxing knitting session at the hotel room, that I think I will wait until tomorrow to write more. I have to go cast on some new socks tonight... Until tomorrow...