No pain, no gain

I suppose pain is inevitable; despair is optional. With lots of physical therapy, icing, heat, naprosyn and resting, I finally finished my own Metamorphosis cardigan sweater. It always amazes me how pain free I can be during the knitting, but when I stop, owie owie. Very bizarre. But I am finished, and I love it. I may never take it off.I love how the sleeves bell out slightly, and the length is great, and it is warm but light.
Thanks to Andrea and the Metamorphosis group for encouragement, ideas and support!

Meanwhile, I am packing to move house, and trying to sell, so it is important not to make a mess in my studio. Which is really hard for me. But I started a quilt a few years ago, and it is a quilting rather than piecing project, so all I need is the machine and some thread. Of course, time is always important. Perhaps tomorrow I will give you a peek at it.

In Celebration of Pi Day

My son found this marvelous song in honor of Pi: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaMWEz-jaHE
 so I had to share it with you.

It is lovely to knit to...although I am still limiting my knitting time and icing and getting PT, etc. But nothing is as disheartening as seeing the scenes of destruction in Japan. The scope of the world-wide disasters lately has been astonishing. If it brings the world together and helps us rise above our petty differences, that might bring some good out of all of this. With Uranus entering Aries , at a time of Pluto in Capricorn and Saturn in Libra, it is certainly a time where compassion and mothering are sorely needed. Maybe Neptune entering Pisces will help usher in an ideal of universal compassion and we can start to heal some of the wounds of the world.
In the meantime, there are blue orchids.

I had to buy this blue orchid, which I ran across at Home Depot of all places. It is the most perfect color I have ever seen in a flower.

Type A

Happily, I managed to finish my third metamorphosis body, this one using patterns ABCD, and Madeline ToshSock, in an amazingly bright Nikko blue yarn. Again, blocking was magic!

This is the blocked body, lying on the blocking area. I love how the wires curve to allow for some waist shaping. Later I smoothed out the lines by spreading out the sweater and lightly spraying the lines with water and letting it dry.

Here are the unblocked photos for comparison:

Ruler shows length to be about 20 inches. (blocked was more like 29!)
Here is the try-on , unblocked:

I forgot to take blocked try on pics, and went directly to knitting the sleeves, which involves putting the body in a draw-string bag so it won't get in the way while I'm working the sleeves ( in the round, on DPNs).

Unfortunately, last month I developed another episode of repetitive strain symptoms, so I stopped knitting for a couple of weeks. This made me really frustrated! And didn't seem to help much, despite some icing and all the rest. So lately I've been getting physical therapy 3 times a week, with chiropractic, and exercises, heat, ice, etc. It is sort of helpful, but apparently my neck discs are impinging on my nerves,  so that just exascerbates the whole thing. Jane Brody in the  NY Times had an interesting article about tendonopathies: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/health/01brody.html?_r=2&ref=science

So, how could I stop knitting ( or typing)after this? Impossible. So, I'm taking frequent breaks, stretching, icing and trying to knit differently ( knitting backwards instead of purling, doing some rows in continental instead of my usual english style), supporting my arms and using "aircast" arm bands sometimes to isolate the painful muscles. It is slow, but I am determined! And I'm reading more books, which is the one thing I can't seem to do and knit at the same time...so, we shall see. But if you don't hear much from me, it is due to my laying off the typing for a while.I do want to hear from you, though! So, email me!