This past weekend Tito and I drove out to the beautiful town of Merrickville, ON – a town dedicated to crafters of all kinds. They have several pottery and glass blowing studios, a brilliant artist who carves gourds and a metal smithy.
On the way we had an unexpected treat – we passed a llama and alpaca farm. On a hunch Tito turned the car around and went back to see if they sold their own wool and would let us have a look around, and they did! They were very welcoming to us, and I ended up falling in love with one chocolate and one white alpaca, so I bought 200 grams of each. I might try my hand at dying the white one myself.
We’ll definitely be going back that way – while in Merrickville we signed up for a glass blowing workshop in a few weeks – I’ve never tried it, I’m so excited!
I’ve been inspired to find and visit other wool farms in Southern Ontario now, it’s a great way to get all-natural wool, with the lowest carbon footprint, and as a bonus you get to meet some lovely people (and animals). Below are some pics from our adventure, I’m pretty sure those llamas are gossiping about Tito in one of the pics ;o)
Look at these cuties ;o)
They don’t seem too impressed with us though!
Black sheep!
Beautiful farm country.
The two skeins I purchased – I can’t wait to see what comes out of these!