Last Christmas I made black alpaca batts with pops of colored silk in them for Miss Marja’s christmas gift.

I think there ended up being over 7 ounces or something, but I admit I didn’t pay too much attention. Since alpaca turns out not to be my favorite thing to spin, and I really can’t wear it too easily either, I was happy to make my stash of black alpaca fiber into something pretty to pass on. Miss Marja spun it into a traditional 3 ply yarn. And then I got it back, in order to knit it into a large Lintilla scarf for her.

Thing is, there were actually two skeins. One of the traditional 3 ply, and the other the remainder of the singles chain plied. Well, I really wanted to use up ALL the yarn. So I weighed my skein, and then began with the chain plied yarn. Here’s how far I got:

And that’s when I stopped. Because I could tell that the pops of color were not going to mimic the rest of the shawl in any way. So we’d have this start with these large pops of color, and then the rest of the shawl would have well blended silk colors. I hated it. And, really, I didn’t think Miss Marja would love it either. So, I put it down and knit her reversible circles of lace, because I needed Lintilla to have a time out.

Over the weekend I yanked out this bit of knitting, balled it up, and added to it the rest of the chain plied yarn. I then asked Miss Marja if I could add the chain plied bits to my crazy mystery shawl, which she quickly said yes to. Then I got started on the latest lintilla, which looks exactly as I’d envisioned, and I am very well pleased with the project now. The photo is not the greatest due to the lack of decent light at work. But, I think you can get the idea of the blending and much more subtle color shifting that is happening now.

In other news, Mr. Ink purchased tickets for Miss Butterfly to go see Panic at the Disco for a christmas gift. The tickets were for the three of us to go as a family. But, as the date of the concert drew closer, she decided she’d much prefer to bring a friend, and so she asked Mr. Ink if he’d be willing to take her and Bestie, rather than her and me. He thought about it for about 24 hours, and decided indeed he could do that if it would make her happy. So, I got an evening at home alone, which I promptly used to take a long, hot, relaxing bath and Miss Butterfly got to see her band the way she wanted.

First of all, I love these two lovely, excitable, screeching, intelligent, fun girls so much. For real. They are amazing children. And the man who would take those screeching girls to see a band he doesn’t even like is pretty fantastic too. I mean, I would totally be rolling my eyes if I had to do it, but I said to him “Have fun!” a bit sarcastically, as the girls were bouncing all over the house and being loud. And his extremely genuine response was “You know I will!”

I was asleep by the time they got home, so I’ll have to hear how it went today.

I am into the third color on the find your fade shawl, so I’ll be able to grab photos of that tonight. And then tomorrow? The next clue of the marled mystery will be revealed, so you know what my weekend will consist of! I know me, and I know that I am going to be just giddy to get home on Friday to work on it! In part because it’s a Friday, and in part because the shawl has been way too much fun. Happy Thursday Friends!