Document Your Life | May 2021

Here is my "Document your life" video for the month of May. The music in all my videos is kindly provided by Mr. Biest. I'll leave you the link to my YouTube channel here in case you want to check out my other videos.

Theme of the Month | May - Steps

In this post I will discussing fitness related topics, but nothing about weight or such. Just as a warning if this is a sensitive topic for you!

This months theme was 'steps'. When I originally put my list of themes together, my idea behind this was using this month to get back into the '10.000 steps every day' thing. I did that about two years back and I loved it. Since the start of the pandemic my daily steps have been decreasing. My step-counter app says I'm at about 6.800 steps per day. Which isn't bad at all. But sometimes my watch counts knitting as walking, which makes this count a bit inaccurate. I guess it's actually a bit less.

I know that the whole '10.000 steps' thing is a bit controversial and that the number is not really significant. It's just something that helped me get more active. I like numbers, I like my little counter and the nice confetti when I hit the 10.000. 

... just in the last few month that was a rare occasion. Since I hurt my foot in March I wasn't able to walk as much as I liked to. My foot still hurts when I stand or walk for a longer time and uneven ground like in a forest or even grass is still a challenge.

Luckily my job still makes it impossible to not walk so that's nice, but I wish my foot would hurry up and finally heal completely.

I miss going on ling walks through the woods, I miss just walking everywhere and not having to worry about where to park my car and I miss my daily 10000-steps-confetti.  

I still feel like I really "failed" this months theme. But I know it's not about ‘wining’ or ‘failing’. It’s a work-in-progress. 

Next months theme is 'birthday month' and I'm honestly so glad that this something where I feel like I don't have to achieve anything.

May

May is (almost) over and a lot of things happened.

 

On May 5th on of my snails, the little Cheesecake, sadly passed away. Cheesecake was of of the three babies that hatched in January and I always knew there was a chance that not all of them would make it. It still came as a shock, but I'm glad they didn't have to suffer for long. I miss them so much and the terrarium feels a lot emptier even if there are still six snails in there. 

It was a weird few days weeks after that. I kept myself busy with work, knitting and my shinies as best as I could. I also got my second dose of vaccine which is great.

By the end of May more things changed - specifically I changed my Instagram name to @saltwaterpinecone and subsequently my Blogs name (the url will stay the same for now), Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube, too. 

I thought about this for a while and it just felt like it was time. The name came from a long process of brainstorming and then a spontaneous feeling of "That's it!". I like that it still fits the idea a had with OctoStag (the sea and the forest) but it feels nice and fresh. It also reminds me of a stupid joke I recently made in a D&D game and that little connection make me very happy.

So that's what happened. I hope I'll manage to change the link everywhere. If you stumble upon a broken link anywhere feel free to tell me!

 

Theme of the Month | April - Knitting

Last months theme was 'Small Goals' and that went really well. But this month ... the theme was 'Knitting' ... I had big plans ... it went ... not well ... I guess?

I had intentionally not started a few projects in March that I wanted to work on in April. But this didn't happened. I don't even have a good excuse. I just wasn't doing it.

Instead I bought yarn, I bought patterns and I took some time to learn about a bunch of current issues in the knitting community. I'm not really in a position where I could give a great explanation on what is going on so instead I linked a few starting points: From the whole accessibility discussion concerning Ravelry (this blog post explains it very well), to yarn companies being horribly to their POC employees (Leila Raven explains it all very well on her blog) and white designers dominating the discussion while also acting in ways that I don't want to support (this, this, this and so much more...).

It's a mess. And I'm glad that there is so much more awareness for issues like this. A year ago I probably wouldn't have even heard of these topics and now I have the chance to listen to the people affected and do my part by making more conscious decisions. 

I get it that some people are not happy about being confronted with 'political' discussions when it comes to knitting and such. But basic human rights and decency should not even be a 'political discussion'. Some people are considered to be 'a political statement' by some just by purely existing (POC, queer people, ...) and being able to just ignore these 'political' issues is a huge privilege that not everybody has. A privilege that people can use to make a positive change by being just a bit more conscious, willing to listen and open to change.

But now back to the actual crafty part - I still did a bit of knitting and a few yarn related things:

I tried my hand at dyeing yarn for the first time. I used dye for easter eggs and lots if vinegar. This color combination is so pretty and the dying process was quite easy. I already order some more dye and search through my stash for more yarn to dye.

I wore my latest beanie quite a bit. It has reflective strands in the yarn which is something I just love. The yarn is nothing special, but one can never have enough beanies in my opinion.

I bought a pattern - the 'Deschain' pullover/tee and is almost finished. It's something I never knitted or really wore before, but I love the look and I hope I will like it on myself. 

I also bought a bunch of yarn for the 'Cozy MacBlanket' Cardigan. I saw this design on Reddit even before it came out as a pattern and I just can't resist a big drapy cardigan like this.

While I looked at the yarn I had gotten for my lastest projects, I realised that I still buy the same yarn I did a few years back as a student. It's not the cheapest option, but it's definitely not the high-class-30€-per-strand-hand-dyed-imported yarn. Maybe I could buy this now. But I don't. And I have a problem with people shaming others for their yarn-choices. I appreciate the work in an item, not how expensive the material was. It's perfectly for everybody to use their choice of yarn, may it be the clearance-bin acrylic yarn or the one-of-a-kind-skein from their favourite Etsy shop. In the case of supporting small businesses and designers by buying their yarn I completely understand that people want to promote where they got their yarn from and that's amazing! Theres a big difference between telling people 'Hey, I got this amazing yarn form Small (Local) Artist and they offer some amazing quality yarn!' and 'Why do you still buy this Cheap Stuff? Why don't you buy Expensive Brand like me?!'. It just feels a bit icky and classist to material-shame people and I don't like it.

And one more thing - I knitted a pair of socks. Actually I started them back in December and just finished them now. They are not for me either, I don't really like the feel of knitted socks, they are for my mom. She loves knitted socks and mended the pair I made for her a few years back so often now that it was time for a new pair. I also don't like knitting socks. But for her I do it once in a while.

And that was me and knitting. The month was a great representation of my whole relationship with this hobby. I'm inconsistent in how much I knit, but I like having pretty yarn and sometime spend a lot more time planning instead of actually knitting. But that's just how it is.

The theme for May is 'steps' and that is interesting because of my injured foot. But let's see how it is by the end of the month.

Document Your Life | April 2021

 The music in all my videos is kindly provided by Mr. Biest. I'll leave you the link to my YouTube channel here in case you want to check out my other videos.

April

April was ... don't know ... it just was. I don't know what to write each month. Nothing really happens anymore. And nobody reads this anyways. So at least have a few nice pictures. Here you go:

Shiny, Glittery & Scaly | DIY Ear Plugs

This is something I made a while ago: Plugs for my stretched ears. I have a big, way too big, collection of plugs and tunnels but I tend to wear the same few pairs everyday. The ones that are comfortable, preferably made from wood and suitable for work (so no tunnels, the risk of injuries is just too big).

So I decided to make myself a few pairs that fit these criteria plus a pair I wanted for a fancy occasion. The process for all of these is very similar. I used wooden, double flared plugs as a base for all of them. Two of these were plugs I already had and wanted to upcycle, the third pair I bought. The cabochons are from Etsy, they are very easy to find and available in different sizes. And for one pair I got cheap earring and took them apart. That's often a great way to find unique, fancy parts to turn into something new!

The first pair are holographic ‚dragon scale‘ plugs. They are basic wooded plugs with basic black scaly cabochons glued onto them and painted with holographic paint. The paint I used is actually from my minipainting stuff and it's by Green Stuff World.

The second pair are also ‚dragon scale‘ plugs. They are basic black wooden plugs and scaly cabochons   but these are painted with nailpolish containing chunky flip-flop glitter.

And the last pair are these teardrop-shaped ones to match a fancy outfit I wore for a wedding. The bases are wooden teardrop plugs and then I took apart a pair of cheap dangly earrings. I cut the hanger part off, painted the 'gem' in the middle a bit of glittery nail polish and glued it onto the plug.