October Knitting Cruise/Retro Post #3…

My Mom met me in Seattle, then we spent the weekend at The Lion’s Paw Inn.  Besides shopping for scrapbooking supplies and yarn, we went to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.

The coastline along the way:

The North Head Lighthouse, and my Mom:

The Cape Disappointment Lighthouse:

On Monday, 1 October, we returned to Seattle to board the Celebrity Cruise Line Ship Mercury…

On the first evening, I started my spinning project, some beautiful pink wool from Heidi Parra at The Artfule Ewe.  When it got too dark to spin, I worked on my (future felted) laptop sleeve made from needlepoint yarns.  The wheel is my friend Caryn’s Louet Victoria.  It spun a very fine thread very nicely – so nicely and fine that I didn’t finish by the end of the cruise and had to wind it into a ball to ply with more later:

Our first stop was Nanaimo, BC.  My Mom and I went on a nice historic tour of the downtown area. 

This is a fillet crochet piece that was gifted to the church we visited:

Here’s an antique saxony spinning wheel on display in the natural history museum:

Then we headed over to Gabriola Island to visit Paradise Island Alpaca Farm.  While we were waiting for the ferry, we met a lovely woman, Jane, who is from about 40 miles from where my family is from un Upsate NY.  Since we didn’t see the farm’s van waiting for us on the island, Jane gave us a tour of the island by car and took us to the farm.  Here are some of the alpacas we met…

The farm’s shop was very cozy with a nice selection of different weighted alpaca yarns.  I even got some highly coveted alpaca in black and gray.  Since it was so chilly, I bought a hat crocheted from a white alpaca boucle yarn.  To help artisans in Peru, the farm sends it’s fiber to make items the shop can later sell to further help the artisans. 

For dinner, the appetizer I picked was a portabella aspic with goat cheese.  Since I was reading  the totally wonderful book, Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen by Julie Powell, I had to order the aspic, which was pretty tasty after you get over the texture:

And here’s the flan for dessert, complete with carmelized sugar and chocolate ric-rac:

The next day, we went to Victoria, BC.  We started off by doing some yarn and button shopping.  In my rush to buy up lots of Hand Maiden yarns, I forgot to take pictures of the Beehive Wool Shop and the Button & Needlework Boutique.

After we ate lunch on the cruise ship, we went on our planned excursions to the Victoria Butterfly Gardens and Butchart Gardens. 

The male Atlas Moth…and the female Atlas Moth…who will only live for about 3-5 days after emerging from their cocoons – long enough to make more Atlas Moths…

A Blue Clipper:

A Common Blue Morpho (female): 

A Great Mormon:

A Mocker Swallowtail:

Another Blue Clipper:

An orchid:

One of the many Angels Trumpet trees:

And on to Butchart Gardens…begonias to start:

The Sunken Garden:

The Ross Fountain:

Some dahlias:

The Japanese Garden:

The Star Pond:

Here’s a shot of our cruise ship:

A cool hallway on the ship:

Our last day was one at sea.  I took a freeform knitting and crochet class in the morning with Tatyana Tchibova (concentration not helped by the rolling seas).  In the afternoon, I took Olde English knitting with Jule Castner.  Other classes were taught by Alexandra Immel and Susan Dirk.  That evening, we celebrated Sam’s (early) birthday on the cruise:

After the cruise, we ran all over Kitsap and Mason counties on a search for a size 1, 47″ Addi Turbo Lace needle to no avail and met up for dinner with Spring, Venita, Maria and Kevin at the Outback.  Unfortunately, I forgot to take a pic at dinner.  Spring gave me her clapotis-inspired scarf from her own hand-painted bubblegum silk.  Now I don’t have to covet it from afar!

The next morning, we met up with Maria and newlyweds, Ward and Sharon, for breakfast at Hi-Lo’s 15th Street Cafe:

We went up to The Artful Ewe to see Spring and Heidi.  I wound off my pink fine wool single with Heidi’s ball winder.  Here are some shots of the shop…can you see Spring on her Lendrum?

…and Heidi modeling one of her beautiful shawls…

Then we cleaned the rest of my things out of my house for hopefully the last time (it’s on the market).  Here’s a shot of the newly remodeled kitchen: