Patchwork January

Hello........... Here's a little Summerhouse round up from January, seems like an age ago now.

I'm afraid January here at the Summerhouse was mostly viewed from my comfy bed, I've been really poorly since Christmas with a relapse, the lurgy and then a horrible new symptom affecting the nerves in my face and head, so painful.  I did try and keep crafting, it's my escape after all !! and managed to leave the house only three time the entire month.  So I'm hoping things will start improving soon.

Over on Instagram the month of January looked like this......

As for the Summerhouse garden I didn't really make it out there much, but not a lot was going on as it's been so cold it was lovely to see the visiting woodpecker though. Everything is behind not even a crocus to be seen, one of the very few times I ventured outside I managed to have a fall oops, slipping on route to the summerhouse, one muddy Clare my own fault as I was really to poorly to be out there.

This year I've decide to add a new mosaic to each of the patchwork posts, it's going to be all about WIP's (works in progress) that I hope to finish or get back to in the next month, here we have my Angel wings shawl, Rainbow drops blanket, Seaside pebble blanket and my Purple leave cushion which has recently had it's ta-dah moment

Well that just about sums up January, the sun is shining here today at the summerhouse and I ever hopeful for Spring being on the way.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

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 September

Hello............. It's patchwork time again,  sorry I've been a little absent from my blog these past few months, I've been struggling with my health, so there has not really been that much of note to tell plus I have to confess with low energy levels instagram has been distracting me a little, so if you like you can follow the blogs page over on Instagram.

September was a month of crochet, art, crystals music oh and a giant ice cream yes a local farm has opened a ice cream parlour just down the road, so it would have been rude not to go and check it out.  As for the crochet I've been working on some WIP's so hopefully I will have a Ta-Dah post to share soon.

Out in the garden Summer was still going strong, we had such lovely warm sunny days in September such a lovely end to summer.

So for October I'm already behind with this but I hoping to try and post once a week.

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

Patchwork April

Hello............. I'm so far behind with everything lately but I'm determined to share my April Patchwork before we hit June tomorrow.

Despite feeling really poorly for a lot of April, I did manage some crafting, mostly granny squares and a little bit of water colour painting, in preparation for my trip to the Ceramics Cafe. I also shared a post about some Festival bunting I made in March, but I had to wait to tell you all about until April as it was a gift for a friend.

Out in the garden, it was pretty darn lovely, I love this time of year, so much colour to be found.

 talking of the festival bunting.........

Well it's been on it's first adventure....

Well that's about it, fingers crossed I'll be a bit quicker with my May Patchwork.  My energy levels have improved a little since re starting some Antivirals, so fingers crossed things are on the up again.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Patchwork March

Hello............. Here's my March round up.

Lots of Yarny goodness and some new crafts too, eating clean and some music, I've been trying to learn a old time fiddle tune each week on the mandolin, with my brain fog and playing just a few minutes a day it's hard to get them to stick, so one a weeks about my limit at the moment.

Spring time out in the garden is so very pretty I love this time a year, the Easter bunny very kindly left me some lovely Viola's I just love how they look like they are painted with watercolour, lots else going on too with Polyanthus and lots of spring bulbs.

Here are  a couple of patchworks I shared to sum up the month of March over on Instagram

Well that's about it for March, sorry I've not been about too much lately I've been struggling a lot with dizziness I'm like a human weeble, (except sometimes I do fall down).  Thanks for all the lovely comments on my last few posts, I read them all, sorry I'm just not well enough to respond to them at the moment.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Patchwork February

Hello.......... As ever I'm running behind with my patchwork post here's February in review.

A month mostly spent getting things finished off for the Craft Club exhibition, I did finally get to grips with my sewing machine, only two years on from when I bought it. !!! A little bit of art too, plus lots of pacing and resting up, I also finished a course of antivirals, which fingers crossed helped my energy levels improve a little until I finished them and crashed back down,  so we're going to try them for another month, thankfully with time the nasty side effects seem to be easing.

Out in the garden the bulbs were waking up and until the frost got them last summers geraniums were still going strong, we even still have strawberries growing.

After a year of planning and making our local crafts clubs exhibition went up in the local library, as you can see, there are a wide variety of crafts on display, crochet, sewing, painting and jewellery to name a few.

Here's a closer look at our group project that represents the seasons.

Well that about sums up February, crafting, resting up, eating clean with a bit of art thrown into the mix, some new crafts too in the form of paper cutting and machine sewing.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

Patchwork January

Hello............. A new year and I'm still as tardy with my patchworks, here it is my photo celebration of all things January here at the Summerhouse.

Lots of crafting, colouring, eating clean and a little bit of music, saw me through the first month of the year.

Out in the Summerhouse garden the flowers were waking up too, well some of them were waking up the geraniums however been have been up all winter, the party animals.  Despite all of the rain it's been very mild here we've only have a few frosts and not a bit of the white stuff as of yet.

Well that was January.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

2015 Review, part two

July

August

September

October

November

December

Hello.......... So here's part two of the 2015 review, sorry it's a bit late but this year is starting slowly here at the Summerhouse, as usual Christmas has left me exhausted, it's not the best time of year for the chronically ill, so I've been resting a lot and sleeping even more, over fifteen hours yesterday, but I guess it's what my body needs so I'm just going with it.

So that was 2015, another year I'm glad to see the back of, it wasn't the best here at the summerhouse with two big relapses of my health and losing both of our lovely cats (crafting assistants), plus a broken ankle thrown into the mix.  There was some good in amongst it all, you have to keep looking for the good after all and keeping these monthly mosaics is a great way of doing that.

I'll be back soon with a garden review.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

2015 review (part one)

January

February

March

April

May

June

Happy New Year Everyone.

Here's hoping for a 2016 full of peace, better health, eating clean, fun, music, crochet, crafting, flowers, laughter and lots and lots of yarn

Wishing all things good to you and the people you love.

Thanks for your company this past year my bloggy friends

Back soon with part two of 2015.

Clare xx

Patchwork October

It's patchwork time again....

October was a mixed month here at the Summerhouse my health has taken a quite a nosedive so I've been struggling lots over the last few weeks, we also lost out lovely Dylan, who used to make life so much better, with his funny antics and cuddles.  Not a awful lot of crafting really but I did finished off my ice cream cushion, plus make some cards, as well as some top secret Christmas crafting. 

There has been lots of thinking and planning to do though, about a exciting project.  As some of you know I'm a folk singer/song writer and the plan was that this November I was going into the studio to record a EP.  Very exciting, so over the past few weeks I've been trying to select which songs to record, which is quite a tricky business, decisions decisions.  Sadly with my health in a full on flare, the recording date has had to be postponed at the moment as I'm struggling to even lift the guitar, but at least that gives me more time to decide on the songs.   So I'll keep you posted just need to get my joint pain under control and find some energy.

Out in the Summerhouse garden there is still lots of colour to be seen, as the Autumn so far has been so mild, yippee!!

Over on Instagram the month of October looked something like this, you can find my instagram page 'here'

So a sad farewell to our lovely crafting assistant, I'm really missing Dylan, it's so strange to have a house without any fur people in, since I was eight year old there has always been a cat or two around so losing both Merlin and Dylan in the last six months has been very hard.  They both lived good lives to grand old ages but are surely missed around the Summerhouse.

Now as for the Blog award and paying it forward, I've not forgotten, but I've just not been well enough to do it, I think this time reluctantly  I have decided not to forward on the award.  I'm just feeling too ill to cope with anything much at the moment.  So a big thank you to Sharon for nominating me and a bigger sorry for not being able to pay it forward.

Pesky Chronic illness, I'm hoping things will start to improve again soon for me as the dosage of my Lyme disease medication has been put back up. It was reduced on a consultants say so a couple of months ago, as the NHS would have you believe that there is no such things as Chronic Lyme disease and that it certainly doesn't need treatment. However my health falling to pieces seems to suggest it does exist (or least that I'm fighting some sort of infection that is effecting every part of my body and that this is not purely ME/CFS)   the treatment I was receiving before was at least holding it at bay.

Happy Crafting

Clare xx