Blogger must have heard me

No sooner had I published that last post than I tried uploading photos again and... it worked.

Well.

If kvetching on my blog always got me this kind of instantaneous result, you'd be reading some very different material right now, let me tell you. Fortunately, I think this is a one-time thing, a fortuitous circumstance, so I'll spare you my take on foreign policy, religion, and public cell phone usage. Instead, here are photos. Yay!

The Mighty 8"

I wasn't kidding about 10s per minute with cabling. This weekend, it felt like 5s per minute. I am so glad I have reached this point, it's been like passing a gall stone: I just want to get it over with, already. Other projects call. They are queuing up, staring at me through the semi-transparent plastic drawers. Begging me to cast them on. Tonight, or maybe tomorrow, I will give them some relief. I have a couple or a dozen WIAs I need to pay a little attention to in the meantime.

Speaking of attention...

This is what I see when Jameson is not on my lap, my shoulders, or under my chair, whining. Whoever said cats are independent doesn't know my cat.

Recycling yarn

I've had this yarn for six years. Yes, six years. As I told knitcake during a Knit 'n Sip session (somewhat slurrily - I'd already had two vodka tonics and balled three skeins of yarn) this yarn was what got me into knitting. I was a crocheter, even and Afghan crocheter, but my Grandma sent me a care package that included this yarn in it's first sweater incarnation. It fit me; it had wonderful buttons, but the styling was so-so. Dolman sleeves, poofy body. Grandma didn't make it, she was just sending it along, so it ripped it and started making a sweater from a Rowan magazine I saw in the library. (You know, that same library where I learned to knit belt- style? I'll never forget that knitting section.)

I was half-way up the back when I began to fear that my yarn was running out. Two frogged sleeves had gone into making that half-back. Danger, Will Robinson, Danger!

So I put it off. And off. Until now.

Saturday I wound it all up on my handy new yarn meter, tied it off, and washed it in Woolite. I was drying it in the shower with a towel on a coat hanger as weight until it became evident that the shower might be needed for something else (like showering) within the next couple days, so I relented and slung it all over a chair.
It measures about 780 yards. Doesn't sound like a whole sweater, does it? Well, I could have sworn it was a whole sweater when I got it, and I haven't lost more than 25g of it over the years.

To use this yarn I'm going to have to learn to knit a raglan from the top down, just in case I run out - a simple raglan. The yarn is heavy worsted, about 16s =10 cm/4 inches. Maybe if I use big needles and have YO increases, it'll just make it. Any thoughts?