It’s been so busy since I came back from my Canadian cruise that I haven’t had a chance to share all of the photos and experiences from the trip! This was my first ever cruise so I was a complete cruise virgin. I found it fascinating how many of the craft cruisers had been on many cruises. It seems like cruising is something that if you like it you ‘really’ like it!

Everyone wanted to know if I liked cruising and while it was a very fun experience it’s a bit harder to judge when you’re there for work. I was very grateful that I didn’t suffer from any motion sickness. It only occurred to me a few weeks before that it might be a possibility and the idea of teaching while ill filled me with dread. I found it very disconcerting to be in a different place every day, often with a new time zone. I think it’s a really great way to get a snapshot of a country and file away spots for further exploration.

The food was superb, such a treat to have a three course meal served to you every night. The knitters were very skilled and picked up new techniques really quickly so even though the classes were big we managed to cover lots of material. As this trip had a lot of port stops (port intensive) fitting in classes was tricky, this meant that many of the nights the class were at 7.30 after dinner which did make for some sleepy knitters.

So here’s a very quick overview (mainly photos and links) of some of the stops we made along the way.

Montreal

I flew in to Montreal to begin the trip. Days before I realised that Kate Gilbert (Twist Collective) lived there so we went out for breakfast and a driving tour of Montreal on the first day. A very fun morning, thank you Kate! I even got to brush up a little on my long forgotten French.

The rest of the tour group went to visit Louet that day (while I recovered from jet lag) and I got a wonderful dyeing book and square needles on their return.

At the end of the day we went to visit the first yarn shop of the trip, Espace Tricot, and I picked up a great selection of buttons (I became know as the button lady for the tour!).

Next day before the cruise we went on to a second yarn shop, La Maison Tricotee, that had a trunk show and I got myself some chunky Uneek (hopefully I’ll get that knit into a hat before the winter!)

Quebec City

Next day we stopped in Quebec city and it was the most glorious weather. First stop was Biscotte in their brand new shop which has a huge selection of their own hand dyed yarns. I nabbed myself some self-striping yarn and I just loved their yarn display!

Afterwards we took a brief walking tour of the old walled section city which was very vertical. Does anyone know why they have ladders on the roof? I’m sure there is a good reason. It looked like it was a permanent part of the structure.

Charlottetown

Next day we stopped in Charlottetown in Prince Edward Island (PEI). Again a great day and we had a bus tour to Belfast Mini Mills. I found this spot really, really fascinating. They have developed a set of milling equipment that all fits into a single room and can be used for doing very small scale milling. It’s particularly suited to rare and unusual breed that may only produced a small amount of fleece.

To finish off a really nice morning we stopped into a local restaurant and got a great Lobster Roll!

Sydney, Nova Scotia

This was a very brief stop, no yarn photos from here but I thought the architecture was very distinctive – plus look at that amazing blue sky!

Halifax, Nova Scotia

Next stop was Halifax which was our first rainy day. We stopped first at
Lucy Neatby‘s house where she had a trunk show of her work with patterns and yarn for sale. After that we went to the Titanic cemetery and then on to
Fleece Artist. They have such lovely yarns with very unusual, high quality bases. I grabbed a skein of Flaxen that’s a mix of silk and linen.

Bar Harbor

Our final stop was on US terretory in the beautiful town of Bar Harbor, Maine. It was just before the start of their season so everyone was out painting and beautifying their store fronts!

We went to the Seven Sisters Arts trunk show where I was delighted to meet up with one of my fantastic test knitters, Bonnie! If you are every on my ravelry KAL forum you’ll recognise her name as she often pops in to help out when I’m travelling.

Boston

At the end of our cruise we spend one day in Boston….it started with a bus tour, on a school bus!

This bus brought us to Classic Elite where we got a tour of their facilities and I met a few familiar faces. I really like their collection of cottons at the moment and think I’ll use one for some summer designing.

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I’ll leave you with a few images from my cruise yarn collection, I call it my ‘tourism yarn’ so it’s not adding to the stash :-)

Have you ever been on a cruise? What did you think? Was it what you expected?