Lyme Disease Yarn Bombing

Hello..... Earlier in the year @living_with_lyme over on instagram asked me if I'd like to make some crocheted bunting pennants for a Lyme Disease Awareness yarn bombing project.

As I have a complicated medical history with ME and Chronic Lyme disease and a crochet hook I was only to happy to help, my health has been very poor but I manged to make five pennants one a week.

In of course all shades of green, Lime Green,

I then had a play around with some variegated green yarn which I double stranded with some Green style craft special DK 

and also the Lime Green yarn. Not realising I sent them off in the post to join with others pennants made in the UK, but that was just they start of there journey as my bunting pennants were winging there way all the way to America.

Now here's crafting Assistant Monty who was very keen on the Lime green yarn, and kept running off with it, can you believe it they are one year old now.

So sometime later they arrived in Newark  to join in with  @lymeyarnbombs  for Lyme disaese awareness month which is May. You can see more about the chairty here lots of lovely pics yarny goodness.

Then last week I received a surprise in the post a Tote bag as a thank you for taking part in the project.  I really hope it helps people to become tick aware as this illness is destroying lives, even here in the UK.

As for my Lyme disease story well it's ongoing, I've have severely relpased again and left the doctors last week with this little lot. six weeks worth of antibiotics, sadly it won't cure my Lyme disease but it's the best the NHS has to offer here in the UK, hopefully it will make my quality of life a bit better, for just a little while, once I get past the awful die off reaction that the Antibiotics will cause.

It's going to be a evening rougher few weeks here.

So please do  be Lyme Disease Aware when you're out and about in the countryside, parks or even you're back gardens these ticks are everywhere.

Clare xx

Angels Wings and Sparkles

Hello............  I make no apologies for today's post it's going to be photo heavy and all about colour and sparkle, with a tiny public service announcement. I am now five weeks into a horrible lurgy here at the summerhouse and I'm feeling terrible, so it's colour therapy all the way today.

That's the trouble with chronic illnessis a healthy person gets ill with a cold or virus and they bounce back in a week or so, not so much people like me with a complex chronic illness, yes five weeks on my cold has now finally broken but for the first few weeks my immune system just didn't have a clue what to do, it had immune response's just not the right ones it attacked my joints it made by ME/Lyme disease flare to the point I couldn't get out of bed and has probably put me in a relapse that will take months to recover from, it also decided to attack some of the nerves in my face leaving me in awful pain and it disturbed by autonomic nervous system, so much my heart spent 11 and half hour in tachycardia one day last week.

So this is a very polite ask on behalf of all the people you may know with a chronic illness, please if you have a virus or a cold or any other bug, please please think before seeing them and stay away as it could make them very ill for a long long time.

OK sorry rant over.. back to the colour

Awww

Isn't it lovely

I think I mentioned in my first post I'm using Rico Creative Reflection for my shawl

and I'm loving how it's turning out.

It's a fine yarn so it's taking me a while but it's a real pleasure

to work with these sparkly colours

they make my heart sing, one very happy Clare

Still a long way to go, but here's where I'm up to so far...........

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

2016 : A Year of Crafting

Hello......... I wasn't planning on doing a year in review post, this year as well I didn't think there would be a awful lot to share, 2016 was not so great here at the Summerhouse I spent most of the year trying to recover from a relapse of my ME/Lyme disease that hit in the Autumn 2015.

So instead of a general review I thought it might be good to just focus on the fun stuff and look back on all the crafts, so this is going to be a happy little post. 

  Over the past week I've been putting together 12 colourful crafty mosaics, enjoying seeing the colours change throughout the year with the different makes but all in a way still linked by the same colour palette I always seem drawn to here at the Summerhouse. 

You see she maybe a bit old and shabby but magical crafty things happen inside this grand old lady, who is known affectionately around these parts as 'the shed'

I hope you enjoy them.

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

So there you have it, a whole year of Summerhouse crafting fun, although I have to admit a great deal of it has take place and been created from my comfy bed.

Here's to 2017.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Thank you for all the kind comments left on my last post, I'm going to try my very best to stick around in blogland, I might not be able to post as often as I'd like to and I'm sorry I probably won't be able to make it round to visit all you're lovely blogs but as always I'm going to keep trying.

Patchwork October

Hello.............. October was a month of slowly moving forwards here at the Summerhouse.

Thankfully my energy levels have slowly been improving, after a year of full on relapse, there is just the tiny hint of a little more energy.  Restarting my herbal medicine with the addition of some Ginseng and going back on the antibitoics seem to have really helped, it's slow going though and this last relapse has left me so much weaker.  I'm still mostly resting as the slightest thing finds me exhausted. 

Sorry I've not been about too much in blogland these past months, I've really missed catching up on you're lives and crafty antics.

October did see a couple of Ta-dahs and some new crafts I even managed to write a song, new songs have been few and far between this year.

Out in the Summerhouse garden there was still lots of lovely colour to be found.

October saw my complete one of these long term projects, as for November I hoping to get my hand warmers finished asap as it's getting really cold now and my hands are freezing.  I'm also hoping to get on with some blanket making.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Patchwork May

Hello.......... It's patchwork time again, so here's a little look back at May.

Which was all crochet, ceramics and pants (making !!) 

May is also ME/CFS and Lyme disease awareness month, so I bravely decided to share a post each day about how my illness effects me to help raise awareness over on my Facebook and the blogs instagram page, I did quite well with it but ran out of steam on day 25.

As you know my healths really not been very good this year and I've been in a severe relapse since last October.  I find myself in the difficult position of not having a diagnosis that fully explains all my symptoms and therefore it hard to find a effective treatment, we are just treating symptoms as they occur, fighting fires if you like.  As my GP puts it' my official diagnosis is ME it's probably Lyme disease and my back diagnosis is MS.

It's so hard as I'm developing the symptoms of lots of different autoimmune conditions from Arthritis to Lupus, MS to Diabetes and thyroid disease and Dyautonomia, to name a few, my GP has said she thinks I have some sort of, yet to be discovered multi system autoimmune disease, which lets face it, is just no fun.

If you want to read more about the individual photo's you can find them here on my IG feed.

Onto happier and more lovely things to end with, out in the summerhouse garden.....

Well that's about it for May's round up

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Millions Missing

Hello.......... Just thought I'd pop in quickly to raise a bit of awareness, I'm joining in the #MillionsMissing virtual protest today, by popping my shoes outside the door.  It's a global day of protest to raise awareness about M.E which urgently needs to be taken seriously when it's come to funding and research.

I read this the other day and it's just astounding,

"Did you know that in the USA male pattern baldness receives six times the funding that ME research does? And that the amount of money that goes into MS research each year equals 23 years of ME funding? 

There are many exciting developments happening in ME research but we need more money and time given to developing a cure. Almost all of the money on ME research is raised by patients themselves. This just isn't right."

 

As you know I'm not doing too well at the moment, in fact last night my balance just went when I was downstairs, world spinning, I fell in the hall because of this and after that I the only way I could make it to bed was to slowly crawl up the stairs on my hands and knees, I'm still not right this morning still dizzy and feeling very sick, this is just one symptom of a huge list of symtoms I have to deal with each day.

Luckily I made this sign the other day, to raise awareness of todays protest on my Instagram, like many ME patients there is no way I'll be able to make it to the protest in London today, I'm in bed and protesting from there the only way I can.

So that's why I'm joining the ‪#‎millionsmissing‬ virtual protest today, please join in too we urgently need to fund research and awareness, for this debilitating illness. Pop your shoe outside and take a pic and share it on your social media, for the many ME patient who just won't be able to take part,

Today I'm ..........

I'm missing work,

 I'm missing dancing

 I'm missing travel

I've been missing since 1989
  Missing my life since I was14 years old, (just imagine what that's like, think about that happening to you're child)

 I'm Missing being a parent,

I'm Missing having a life

I'm Missing being about to walk more than a few metre

Missing just being about to go out to do the grocery shop

Missing the Sunshine.

Missing being the person I should have been!!

Just to mention a few of the things I've miss out on in the last 27 years

 ‪#‎autoimmune‬ ‪#‎posturalorthostatictachycardiasyndrome‬ ‪#‎ME‬ ‪#‎myalgicencephalomyelitis‬ ‪#‎cfs‬ ‪#‎lymedisease‬ ‪#‎spoonie‬ #Millionsmissing ‪#‎putyourshoesout‬ ‪#‎protestfeommybed‬

Thanks for reading, it took a lot of today precious energy for me to write this.

Clare xx 

Here's  a link to the protest website if you want to read a bit more 

April Catch Up

Hello.......... Long time no speakie, things have been running a bit slower here at the summerhouse, so I thought I'd do a bit of a catch post for April.

Earlier in the month there was some patchwork and I used my whizzy rotary cutter for the first time, 

a friend and I decided to have a attempt at some patchwork more of a quilting line than a circle seeing as it was just the two of us.

Things didn't exactly go to plan as you can see but I guess it's a start.

I've also been having a pretty bad time of it with my health and have been stuck in bed most of the time, just no energy, which is really rubbish, I'm just trying to take things as slow as possible and hope I improve soon.

There has of course been a bit of crochet, I'm working on my Springtime throw again, easy squares for my foggy brain, it's slow going though since Saturday I've manged to make only three as my pain levels are high and my energy so low.

So still a long way to go.........

I've been doing a little gentle colouring too, with water colour pencils,

Sadly I was feeling pretty rubbish for my birthday this year and probably should have cancelled, (judging by how ill I've been over the last week,) but I so wanted to go to a local ceramics cafe with some friends for a afternoon of crafty fun.

I'm glad I went, as you can probably guess mines the yarn bowl, I can wait to see how they turn out after they have been glazed and fired.

Sorry I've not be able to keep up with all you're blogs

Happy Crafting

Clare xxx