Cascade Alpaca, Casting On and Rheumatoid

 Ohh La La! I love this yarn. Cascade Alpaca Lace is my fave yarn which I use all the time in different colours for different shawls and lace projects. I bought four skeins from www.purlwise.com.au. I also bought my gorgeous Hiya Hiya sharp tips from there too. After my swatch of the evenstar-shawl (susan pandorf) I decided to order the 2.75 needles as the 3mm were too big. However, my needles still have not arrived after more than two weeks! It is only coming from NSW! Anyway, Purlwise are sending me another pair and I am very grateful:) Purlwise provide fantastic service.

 .Here is my tricky cast on for the Evenstar Shawl.

I have been loving listening to podcasts and finding more knitting websites. Some I've enjoyed this week are:
http://www.theknitgirllls.com/wordpress/
http://www.fifikins.com/
homespun House

 I've been doing a fabulous on-line course artists-studio-journal-a-designers-workhorse . In my design journal I've been exploring colours and experimenting with yarn, textiles, painting and collaging. Cutting out with my left hand is challenging, but I did ok!(my right hand is sore).

 My rheumatoid is relentless and despite the huge amount of medications I'm taking I still have pain. My right wrist is very sore and in the evenings my elbow and shoulder ache too. My hips and knees have also been horrid. I've been going to the pool and trying to get some relief. The water is warm and it is nice to float and move around without as much pain. I am currently on Humira injections fortnightly and I am waiting for them to start working more so I can reduce my prednisone steroids. Anyway, that's enough about my joints!:) As I can't knit much today I'm blogging (however this also hurts my wrist!) The sun is shining so I'll pop outside with a cuppa and breathe in the fresh air!

As always; Happy Knitting!