Alarm clock set at 3AM, off to the airport of Lima as two zombies. After haven tried checking in at the wrong flight company (my bad, ahum), ready for a very short flight to Ayacucho, our home for the next 7 days. From 28 degrees, shorts, sandals and hordes of tourists to 11 degrees, rain, Big Bertha’s, and beautiful locals. Hello Ayacucho!
In Ayacucho, in between Lima and Cusco, we always stay at Via Via Cafe, a lovely cosy hotel in the centre, which is run by a lovely Belgian couple. The rooms are very tidy, the food delicious, the staff extremely friendly… To put it short: great place!
Me and Griet have a lot of exciting days ahead here in Ayacucho and its surroundings. During the LN trip to Ayacucho last year my focus was mostly on the production side of the LN|Andes collection, namely the beautiful young mothers that knit the scarves and crochet the beanies by hand, giving them the chance of earning a steady, good, income. Griet took some amazing pictures, which, as said before, were published in Weekend Knack. I brought one with me to show to the ladies… They are famous stars now! So proud that they were… cute!
This morning DIA organised a warm welcome reception for me and Griet. Since it has already been more than 8 months that I’ve last seen all the beautiful girls and ladies, I must admit I was slightly nervous again. The past few months LN|Andes has grown significant which has led to the employment of a lot of new chicka’s, whom I haven’t met before. Wrapped in my dark grey Big Bertha I entered the workspace/atelier of DIA and was instantly hugged, embraced, loved, by my ladies. I received a bouquet of gorgeous flowers, was treated with home baked cookies and was even served a glass of local Peruvian wine. What a feeling!
Now, the ladies already started knitting the new collection items so I was very curious to see some of the new colours in a ‘scarf-version’! And ohw my… They are absolutely stunning! I’ve instantly swopped my dark grey Big Bertha for a flash funky 80’s blue Mini Maria… Jealous? 😉
This year we would like to focus more on the production of the core product of my 100% baby alpaca collection of LN|Beanies & LN|Andes, namely the production of yarn itself. That’s why this weekend we’re off to little villages high in the Andes, where we will herd & shave Alpaca’s, cook typical Belgian food for the herders and spent the night in one of their little huts. Later on we will also have a closer look on how the raw Alpaca material is locally processed & coloured.
Last but not least, as the cherry on the cake, we will also try to do some (high) fashion photography with a few of the new LN|Andes samples on typical Peruvian locations… More info soon…
Now off for dinner!
Hasta luego!
LN
6 comments
So good to see a nice teamwork of ladies from Ayacucho in action!
Congratulations Ellen!
Waw Ellen, speechless!!! X Chris
Op 18/01/2013 2:42, LN|Knits schreef: > LN|Knits posted: “Alarm clock set at 3AM, off to the airport of Lima > as two zombies. After haven tried checking in at the wrong flight > company (my bad, ahum), ready for a very short flight to Ayacucho, our > home for the next 7 days. From 28 degrees, shorts, sandals and hor” >
Hi Ellen,
Here’s today’s blog in return, corrected. I had an idea overnight: you could put up the basic version of each day’s blog when you want, send it to me overnight and I’ll correct it, then you can put the corrected version + the next day’s version online that evening, send me the next day’s version for correction, and so on? What do you think? That way there would be coherence between each blog, language-wise, and you’d still have the basic version online as quickly as you’d like.
I can just see you surrounded with all the lovely knitting!! Yes…I’m jealous (but only a little bit..!)
Till soon, have a great day! XXX Chris
Love it, wat een prachtverhaal!! x
Mooi!
Zalig!!!!!!
Ik wou dat ik er bij was!