After that, I navajo plied it into a 3ply.  The yarn called for in the pattern, according to Ravelry is 8 wraps to the inch.  As you can see, 8 wraps of the alpaca at a 3ply is about a half inch.  So I went with my mom to an LYS out here and looked at the recommended yarn, and really it's not any thicker than the 3 ply, so I've knitted a swatch and we'll see how it goes.

Here it is in a tiny little skein :)

I tried to take a picture of the swatch, which is currently blocking, but you can't see it against the dark blue of the carpet, so I'll have to take something clearer when its not pinned down to the floor.  At any rate it looks like I'm getting close to the gauge of the sweater pattern, which is good.  If anything, though, I might switch to smaller needles because I'm in between sizes and knitting it a little tighter will give me smaller finished sweater.

Here are some pics of my progress in the room...  Franny, as you can see, has been helping by holding the bed down.  She has also been eating spice.  

The shade I got is awesome in a natural green hempy sort of way, but of course thats totally lost against the dinge of the wall *sigh*.  Oh well, at least I have a slight bit more privacy than I did before, and now I just have to find something to hang on the door so that I don't have to deal with people walking around in the backyard and looking into my room.