Keep Calm and Crochet On

Welcome! It seems like I should write more about crafting on here, since it is in the title after all. Truthfully, crafting for me these days pretty much consists of watercolors. There are many different crafts I’d like to try but financially they aren’t a need, so I’m holding off. If you are in the market for a new craft, check out a post I wrote a while back about 20 different crafts you could try as a chronically ill housebound or bedridden person. There are so many crafts on social media that I would love to try and even as I write this I’m thinking I should start a list of all those crafts, then someday I’ll end up with this ridiculously long crafting bucketlist to look forward to, much like my current books-to-read list. 😊 Crafting feels very therapeutic to me and I find that since I can no longer walk on the beach when I need to clear my head, I now turn to crafting, which leads us to this last week. In an effort to ground myself emotionally, I decided to pull out some yarn. I have drawers of it left over from other projects. Crochet was my go-to craft for a while but I had to quit because of a consecutive frozen shoulders. Just to be clear…I never could read a pattern and could only crochet by following along with videos, but I still love it and find it incredibly relaxing. So out came the yarn that had been tucked away and patiently waiting, I thought I’ll just make a little something small that won’t irritate my sassy little shoulders.

I ended up making two different little pieces. As you can see one is a tea cup coaster. I’ve made several of these, but this one is a little lighter, although the liquid part is supposed to be dark brown, I opted for a lighter tea color…truthfully the colors perfectly match some of the colors in my mouse pad. These are super quick and pretty easy, even for me. Here’s the video tutorial. Since that seemed to go relatively smoothly, and I was starting to relax but still needed a little more grounding, I decided to move on to something else. The next project was a cozy that I’ve also made a few times before, usually I add a heart applique but this time wanted to go with a flower. Here’s the tutorial for the cozy incase you want to give it a go. So, I hunted for a flower video that was on my skill level. Think kindergartener with crochet hooks, no seriously. I finally landed on one that seemed tolerable. This was after several attempts, and lots of unraveling with another video. My biggest confession…there were six petals on the tutorial and I only had room for five. I must have used an extra stitch with each petal, but after looking at it from afar I thought five was plenty and centered it perfectly on the cozy, perfectly. I then held it down with my finger and sewed it on. Pulled my finger away once it was stitched on and voila…it was crooked. And I laughed because honestly, no one will ever see it outside my house and I still think it turned out cute. The best part of it all was that in the end, I was smiling. Crafting really can be a great way to get out of your own head even on those days when life with a chronic illness feels like a lot of weight on your shoulders.

I’m trying to reserve energy this week because I have a tilt table test tomorrow and I’m kinda  totally freaking out nervous about it, but also don’t want to end up in Post Exertional Malaise h-e-double hockey sticks so I’m keeping my blog short and sweet this week. I’ll let you know how it went next week and thank you for stopping by! I saw a funny video I wanted to share with you all this week in a Facebook crafting group I follow. If you knit or even crochet, check it out. He’s hilarious. Below, a few more of my little doodle watercolors.

UPDATE: Tilt table test rescheduled (they changed the time and I couldn’t do that time). Going to have to get all worked up about it another day.😉