My Marled mystery has been done for a couple days now, though the weather has been less than cooperative for picture taking.

But, remember that day off I was going to give my kid if her braces were bothering her? Well, that sort of happened. Not a full day, but a half day. The nurse called yesterday to tell me she was struggling, and I went to pick her up. At that point, she’d had a wire that popped out that was tearing up the inside of her cheek, pain from getting them in the first place, and as did happen the last time she had braces, a mouth full of surprise canker sores. Not to mention the stretched chapped lips from getting them put on in the first place. Her pain killers had worn off, and so by the time I brought her home she was feeling pretty low.

She took meds, and rested for about 45 minutes. And then? She spent the rest of the afternoon doing the schoolwork she would have done at school. She made me teach her in the manner which her own teacher would have done that day. Then, when school was about to let out she decided she wanted to walk back to school to get a binder which had her language arts in it. We walked up there, got her binder, got home, and she proceeded to work on an essay that the class wasn’t even due to start until today.

We were back to the orthodontist this morning to fix the popped wire, so hopefully she’ll be far more comfortable in the near future.

In any case, that meant that I had a lovely free afternoon. Miss Butterfly modeled my marled mystery shawl for me.

She also wanted to show off her new braces. The shawl has quite a large wingspan, and it does seem to be getting used regularly by me or by Miss Butterfly, as I’ve just put it on the couch so anytime one of us feels cold we throw it over our shoulders. I really enjoyed the process of knitting this shawl. I am a pretty bold person when it comes to wearing color, but I am struggling to find the courage to actually wear it out of the house. It does look nice draped in the more kerchief manner. But it’s still a lot of weird.

That being said, what I love the most is seeing all the bits of handspun I’ve spun or knit with over the years. There’s lots of leftovers from projects, including some of Miss Marja’s handspun from leftovers. There are also a lot of handspuns I’ve done that just do not fit in any particular project or color scheme preference. Or, the samples were really too small once spun to actually become something. And so much of those handspuns are also things I created, whether that be something I dyed or created in the drum carder. There’s even some undyed handspun from a fleece I processed ages ago. So, the mystery shawl turned into a repository for memories. And that makes it worthwhile even if it never makes it out of the house.

Of course I did find more handspun in my stash that I could have used once the project was done and I was reorganizing my stash. That paired with quite a lot of scraps still left, I may end up doing another. Not in the near future, but again after I’ve finished up some more projects with appropriate handspun that I can add to the pile.

The other thought I had, and I may try this soonish, was that the bit that I liked the most was the brioche. So, I might also try a marled brioche scarf that is similar in nature to a baktus scarf at some point.

In any case, that was good fun, would do again.

Due to all the rain, not much has been happening in the yard. But, I did grab a photo of the rain barrel.

It looks ok there in my veggie garden! In the top is a place for soil and flowers, so it’ll get some annuals once it’s time to plant.

Last year, Mr. Ink and I made four long lists. One for the house, one for the yard, one for the motorbikes, and one for bikes. It was a list for short and long term goals. Mr. Ink requested we pull those out and look them over, so that’s what I did. Naturally, quite a bit that was to be done in the yard was already crossed off, or could be crossed off, or we had a good start on. We added some things. Then? The other three lists there was nothing on there that we could cross off at all. Not that we haven’t accomplished anything, just that nothing at all on the lists was accomplished. So, I think since Mr. Ink is so yard inspired, I am going to start on the house list and see where it gets me this year. Last year there were large yard projects I could assist with, but at this point there’s little left beyond just normal gardening for me to do. Yet I feel quite guilty spinning or knitting when he’s devoting so much time to the yard, even though it’s his hobby.

In any case, we are looking forward to the weekend again. Despite the fact that it’ll be another rainy one. To be honest, we could use that time to get some work done IN the house, so that’s my goal for the weekend!