This week

This week I have spent a lot of time resting, in bed or in my lovely hammock in the garden with darling Monty.

This week I was delight to see my David Austen rose start to bloom, meet ‘Silas Marner ‘

This week was spent mostly bed resting because my blood pressure did this. It’s very erratic swinging  from dangerously high to very low.  The joys of dysautonomia. So this week I’ve been feeling very poorly. 

This week I tried to crochet for the first time in ages. Just for ten minutes to see how my elbows coped, it’s sadly been years since I’ve been able to crochet. I wanted to give it a try as I was having a ultrasound scan of my elbow to see exactly what’s going on. 

This week I was able to meet up with friends and family  outside to celebrate. We are still mostly shielding here so this was lovely 

This weekly there were autumn jump started sweet peas  

 

And Ranunculus in bloom in the summerhouse garden 

Clare xx 

A Little crochet catch up.

Hello.... So I thought I'd do a little catch up on all things crochet.  To be honest its not great news, before I took my blogging break.  I was working on the Eastern Jewels blanket, such a wonderful feast of colour.

Unfortunately, I developed Tendonitis first in my right elbow and then my left (after the GP told me to stop using my right arm!!)

Last Summer after a few months break I started working on the blanket again trying a tiny bit of crochet, adding a round here and there.

Still treating myself to beautiful yarn that I just could not resist. But despite really resting them my elbows just weren't getting any better.

Last September I just could not resist, and decided I wanted to try and join in with Cherry Hearts beautiful 'Natures Walk ' crochet along.

Hoping the squares would be a little more gentle to manage

Loving the colours I had selected for the blanket. Aww Just look at lovely Monty cat all grown up.

Sadly the elbows did not improve despite my GP saying, most cases heal within a year.  In January two years into this pain, I was finally sent for Physio and the news was not great. Complete rest and lots of painful treament that could take months.

They were not even in good enough shape to have a injection.  With the added problem of Lyme disease, the Physio said to the lyme bacteria, the collagen in my tissue and tendons was like cavaiar it was just being eaten away, that my tendons felt like frayed fuse wire when he worked on them, yikes!!

So that's where I am really, with the lockdown I've had no physio since March as I'm too high risk to leave the house.

We are Cocooning here, as I like to call it.

I think maybe I need to try and do a little crochet to see if things have improved at all.

Find a cute little make to try.

Maybe something like these cute pumpkins I made last Autumn.

What are you making at the moment?

I'd love to hear?

Happy Crafting

Clare xx

So I’ve started a new little blog about my health issues and the pursuit of wellness which you can find  Here https://thecornucopiacorner.blogspot.com/

Red Riding Hood

Hello........... Hows everyone? Today I thought I'd share a little art post with you. Since 2016 I've been working on improving my Art skills.  After I started receiving pyschic images with little ability to put them on paper.

So last November I got myself a copy of this gorgeous book in the hope I could improve my people drawing skills.  Plus it looked like a whole lot of fun, the Whimsy and fairytales really appealed to me.

Tamara Laporte the Artist, splits down each lesson into stages, which is great as you learn the theory along the way.

The firts lesson in the book is Little Red Riding Hood, starting with a basic drawing

Then building up the face, I'm using various water colour pencils and then going over them with water.

Which is much easier when painting from bed, the book is all mixed media projects so paints pens, collages etc.  I just used what I found easiest from bed.  Building up my little Wolf in layers

The great things about watercolours is that, you have built in time to rest while letting stuff dry.

I mostly used my inktense pencils, and discovered it was easier to add them to a paintbrush than to draw them diretcly onto the paper for the background.  I just loved how the background jade colour was at this stage and was a little sad to see it fade as the picture developed

I then added some metallic outlines to my image and some cute sequin and paper stars

and of course some glitter glue to the wolf’s crown and wand then a little heart button to his throat.

Ta-Dah

My first ‘ever after’ project was complete, it took me a few days to do which was perfect with my energy levels.

I love that Little Red and the Wolf seem best of friends, now that is a happy ever after.

Clare xx

Bee Happy.... Bee Safe

 Hello... So how is ever one doing ?

During lockdown I've been making lots of cards, one of the reasons being that it's a bit tricky to get hold of cards from home, another being that all crochet has been on hold now for quite a while due to me developing Tennis Elbow.

These Bee themed cards were made from a craft kit that came from 'Crafts Beautiful' magazine.

 I used the stamp from the kit

 some black ink and a yellow sharpie marker

 

To decorate some of my own papers

I also had a go at making some shaker cards, I made the one at the top of this post first and adding some cute little seqins to the cards.

Before sealing them up with some decorative tape.

 I used the stamped up papers, by gluing them to a card blanks and adding some cute little bees I found in my stash then a scattering of the sequins for some sparkle.

All the other slogans and cute scrabble tiles came in the little kit.

I think I like the rainbow one the best. 

I hope you are all keeping well?

Bee Happy and please Bee safe

Clare xx

Lockdown Sampler

Hello...... So I'm back after a very very long break from blogging.  During the lockdown I decided to join in with ' Sew a little Happiness everyday' over on Instagram.  I picked up a old project I started a few years back and decided to have a go and stitching me a little happiness.

It been pretty tough here, I've not the left the house since the 16th March, we are cocooning from Covid, as we have decided to call it.

    The first thing I decided to add to my sampler was some pretty bunting as is was VE day weekend here in the UK, People here we asked to hanging bunting in there windows. We had afternoon tea in the garden as part of the celebrations, it was a bit lonely just 'P' and I with no family or friends around.

As I decided to use a exisiting WIP I had already added a Springtime Tree to the top corner of my Sampler

and a wintertime one to the bottom right corner, adding a little frosty sparkle with some metallic thread.

Each week I aimed to complete one of the little boxes I'd stitched to the linen napkin I was using.

I added a little stitchy rainbow to my sampler to support the NHS and care workers as we clapped on the doorstep every Thursday.

I aim to split my napkin into four sections one for each season so added some pretty cherry blossom to the Spring corner.

Next up I added a peacock feather !! Why you ask? Well during the lockdown our little seaside town was entertained by the antics of four local peacocks who went walk abouts in our little town, the roads were so quiet and the fab four travelled miles.  Keeping us all entertained.  They even made the news and have there own Facebook page

As we rolled into Summer, It was time to add a Summertime tree to the top right corner.

Here's a little peak at how things are going so far....

Nature seems to have thrived with less traffic and pollution and no people about so I added a tiny crocheted butterfly

and some slightly wonky flowers that I'm not overly pleased with.

At the beginning of June it would have been my parents 50th Wedding anniversary, so we celebrated in the garden with Mum, socially distanced Fish and Chips in the garden with my Sister and her husband.

I stitched this pretty heart in the wedding colours with Roses and Freshia to represent Mums bouquet.

So many, birds have been in the Summerhouse garden, we have had great fun watching and feeding them. So I had to stitch a cute little moma and baby bird in a nest.

So my little sampler is coming along.

A couple of weeks ago, I was thrilled to discover we have a hedgehog visiting the garden again. Skippy happy in fact so I just had to pop one on.

So thats my little sampler, so far and my first post in a very long time.  More on that another time, aplologies for any spelling errors blogger has annoyingly removed the spell checker in my absence. 

If anyone is still out there in blogland please say hello in the comments, so I'll know that someone is still out there

Thanks for reading

Clare xx