paca fiesta

So far my new Atlantic Canadian home is providing plenty of fiber-related fun!
Saturday September 27 I hopped on a shuttle bus kindly semi-organized by the Loop and visited the fuzzies at Paca Fiesta!

An introduction:

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The focus was on alpacas, but there was a variety of wildlife in the convention center, more fleeces to be had than yarn for sure! If only I was interested in mountains of fiber that needed to be spun, I would have been in the right place.

Some alpacas:

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cashmere goats:

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super fluffy bunnies!

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this one was some funky special English angora variety with the fuzziest face I've ever seen, and the longest tufts on her ears!

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there were even a couple of llamas:

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There wasn't much yarn to be had but I did snatch a skein of super soft 3-ply chocolate-brown-heathery-black alpaca, totally natural, not sure of the yardage, but it's 73 g (sold by weight, all the skeins were different prices) from The Atlantic Canada Alpaca Farm:

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Obviously I couldn't leave without a bit of alpaca.

There weren't any sheep but they were there in spirit: I took forever selecting a few wool-based skeins from the only proper yarn rack to be seen, and what a rack it was:

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Just pretend it's not blurry, please. There was lots of hand-dyed sock yarn, some of it nylon blend, sea wool (more affordable than the Fleece Artist), silk lace, silk/wool fingering... all gorgeous and hand-dyed. And reasonably priced! I was having so much trouble deciding. The colorways go unnamed according to the labels. I am so glad I picked up some though, because the vendor, I discovered later, does not sell online or in shops - only at festivals!! The Black Lamb is an outfit out of Port Hope, Ontario, and the website doesn't do justice at all to what was on display at the festival!

I picked up my first skein of sea wool (70/30 wool/seacell) in gray, green and blue:

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And two skeins of merino/nylon for a pattern I have in mind, I'm calling this 'roses':

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So pretty!

Overall the show was fun but I'm really glad I caught the noon shuttle and not the 10 am as I'd originally hoped because the return shuttles didn't run until 2 & 4 and being there for four hours would have been way too long. I photographed about half of what was at the festival, so just double the photos above and that was it. Not the biggest show I've been to, and I've only been to two. It was fun though and I got to pet some alpacas and deliberate over pretty yarn which was well priced. All in all, glad I went!

Comments

  1. Oh that looks like such fun! And I would have loved piles of fiber for spinning!

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  2. cuteness squeals for the alpacas!

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  3. i second the cuteness squeals. i want to be an alpaca herder!

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