Burda Silk Blouse 04/2011 #105

In my summer planning post, I mentioned I had some stretch woven shirt fabric that I intended to make up into Burda Three Quarter Sleeve Blouse 06/2013 #119. Well, that post must have been great motivation, because I went on a Burda shirt muslin frenzy! As well as the three quarter sleeve blouse, I muslined a stack of other shirt patterns – one of which was this Burda Silk Blouse 04/2011 #105.

Self management and blame with chronic illness

One of the most important coping skills for living with a chronic illness is self-management. When your energy is so limited that you have to ration it for each daily task, self-management provides the tools to do so. It plays an even larger role when your illness has no other treatment available, such as ME/CFS.

Testing fabric markers

Testing fabric markers: I know, exciting stuff right! But how you choose to mark your fabric can be a contentious issue, particularly in the quilting community, where some commentators see the use of Frixion pens as making some sort of colourful pact with the Stationery Devil. There isn’t as much written about fabric markers for garment sewing, so I decided to test the fabric markers I had on hand (Frixion Erasable Gel Pens and Crayola Ultra-Clean Washable Markers).

Crayola Ultra-Clean Washable Markers Fine Line, from KMart. Pilot Frixion Ball Erasable Gel Pens, purchased on eBay. The middle two (pink & orange in a slightly different style to the others) are 0.7mm width; the others 0.5mm.

Unrest film available for preorder on iTunes

Unrest, the pivotal documentary made from bed by ME/CFS sufferer Jen Brea, is now available for preorder on iTunes. You may remember Jen’s TED talk,“What happens when you have a disease doctors can’t diagnose”, which I summarised on the blog earlier this year. Her movie proves to be just as honest, heart breaking and educational as her speech.

Beginning my FODMAPs journey

Content warning: contains discussion of dietary restrictions

You know when you’ve been putting something off for so long that you just can’t ignore it any longer? That was me and FODMAPs. There were so many reasons I couldn’t do it: it’s complicated, it’s expensive, I don’t have the brainpower, I can’t cook (!). A few weeks ago, I finally reached the tipping point where my desire to not be in constant, crippling abdominal pain overwhelmed all these reasons, and I gave the low-FODMAP diet a go.