who'd a thunk it!

so...i'm at the re congress in anaheim this past weekend (well equipped with knitting supplies as expected) having a great time. along with a number of marvelous speakers, sessions and liturgies, there is a wonderful exhibit hall filled with many vendors of books, music, religious orders, schools, religious trinkets, etc. as i am wandering through the exhibits, never expecting in a million years to come across anything knitting related (get real, this is a religious conference), out of the corner of my eye i catch a glimpse of something that appears to be a hank of yarn - whoo!! eyes right indeed!! well, i stroll on over to the booth and discover that the wool is from south america and is part of a social justice ministry of the sisters of providence of saint mary-of-the-woods. i'm thinking "all right, i can get behind this - a wonderful way to help women of south america provide an income for themselves and thereby break the chains of poverty while supporting my yarn jones. sign me up!!"

as i'm fondling the lovely alpaca yarn, sister jean saddles up to me and cleverly asks if i'm a knitter. gosh, what gave me away! could it have possibly been the drool running out of my mouth?

immediately i answer, "well, yes, yes i am!" sister jean then turns, grabs a basket and says, "maybe you would be interested in this?". in front of me is a basket with 4 skeins of the softest alpaca that i have ever seen. sister jean proceeds to tell me that as part of their mission at the white violet center for eco-justice they raise alpacas and spin the wool into yarn and sell it and other felted and knit items through there website: http://www.whiteviolet.org/. sister jean informed me that they had had a tremendous response to the yarn they had brought with them (gosh, had they had any idea that there were knitters in the crowd they would have brought more) and these were the last four skeins so, like a good yarnaholic, i snapped them up!

turns out that the good nuns of sisters of providence of saint mary-of-the-woods raise a large number of alpacas on their 300+ acre farm and on each yarn label you get a picture and name of the very alpaca that the wool comes from - is that not cool? who would ever have thought that one could practice social justice at the same time as one is knitting!! go figure!!