Back from the MTL!

I’m back!!! Montreal was a blast! In all my travels there have been only a handful of cities that constituted a repeat visit. Montreal is definitely on that list because there was just way too much to do and not enough time to enjoy everything. One of the many cool things we did while there was going to see the Yves Saint Laurent Exhibit. It was great seeing all the wonderful garments in person. Clothes are such a wonderful canvas for the creative mind.

And talk about partying…Montreal really celebrates the summer months. While we were there they had the Just For Laughs Festival,International Nuits d’Afrique Festiva, the International Fireworks Competition, a some seemingly impromptu events as well. The weather was good to us during our visit so that too was a reason to celebrate.

Oh and the eating…THE EATING!!! It started out rough with a few disappointments, but ramped up quickly to feverishly orgasmic proportions (imagine the internet hits on that phrase…hee hee). Here is just a sneak peek at the goodness.

Dessert at Laloux

Dessert at Laloux

However, the best part of the trip had to be meeting Karine of Topstitchgirl.

My friend Virginia and Karine in the blue

Thank goodness for the internet so you can meet all the wonderful people you hear about…like little celebrity sightings. Well, Karine has got to be the best tour guide to the Montreal Knitting underworld. She told me about the Michael Jackson street fights that they have with knitting needles and the knit mafia, Godfather-esque family alliances. Ok…ok… it was not THAT dramatic but she definitely knew all about her LYS’s. She took me to the fabric district which was small but had quite a few good stores but I didn’t buy anything there. However, she took me to the knit shops where I stocked up on some goodies. Maybe it is the relaxed feeling of knit shops that makes you want to support your LYS, who knows.

Our first stop was Effiloche – Sewing Room and Knitting Lounge which has a wonderful selection of yarns but what I was most impressed about what the very high quality fashion fabrics section in the back. I even met the Label Whore that Karine makes mention to in her blog. While there I picked up some lovely red/black/orange tweed wool for a skirt.

Next was Ariadne Knits, a quaint little shop in a cute neighborhood. The store samples were great. I loved a shawl that they had there and the knitted toys. I bought a knitted giraffe pattern that you see in the pictures below

Last was Mouliné Yarns which was chalked full of yarn and had quite a few on sale. However, since I just destashed a chunk of my yarn, I refrained from restocking and only bought one skein of my coveted, but never aquired until now Seasilk in the straw colorway.

After a full 4 hour trip around town, the thing that sealed the deal on Karine being the best tour guide EVER was that she even escorted me via Metro back to my hotel. HOW COOL IS THAT!!! I love blogging and meeting cool bloggers because of it!

And just because it was the coolest picture of the trip. Here is my friend Virginia either showing her American pride or doing a striptease…you decide…

So that is it Montreal in a nutshell. If you want to see more food, more pics, and just more Montreal with narration to boot, you can check out my Flickr set.