monthly posts – The Ace Magpie

May has been an odd month for me this year. I’ve not crafted all that much, but instead I’ve worked on a whole bunch of different things.

picture of a wooden pen holder with nib, a purple bottle of ink and purple writing, the words blurred out apart from the words 'yours faithfully'

Knitting on what I’ve dubbed ‘The Big Slow Knitting Project’

English paper piecing this have been something I’ve been doing on and off for a while now and I’ll do a little bit every so often

The towel day pixel art/maze.

dark blue juggling balls in a hand with a wooden background

Carved a holder for a pen nib I was gifted.

Relearning to juggle, including making my own juggling balls because the ones I had were not what I liked.

Then there are the bigger projects:

Learning javascript. I’ve tried to do this a bunch of times, but this time I actually spent a little bit of money on the pro version of Codecademy. So far I am loving it, although it’s not easy. Hopefully I’ll soon be able to put some tiny projects on here.

Audio escape rooms. I talked about these last month as well. The way escape this podcast works just completely clicks with my brain (the latest story arc What Alice Found just finished and it was amazing). I’m currently working on a story arc of my own which I think I’d like to turn into a text adventure game at some point.

Besides all that I’ve been thinking about writing. I want to write about what being autistic is like for me. I want to share my opinions and ideas, but it’s a scary thought to put it out there. Although being autistic makes me me and I wouldn’t change it, it can be hard to stay positive sometimes. I get overwhelmed and anxious so quickly, and so many little things can trigger a migraine attack.

Happy pride month!

I mustve rewritten this post half a dozen times by now and yet I cannot find the way it should be written yet. I get stuck in wanting it to flow well and to seem not like a list of things I did, even though that is pretty much what it is.

I’ve not had much energy to spent on it either, there is always some chore or project higher up on my list, or the world is just so exhausting that I don’t want to think of any of that (you don’t want to see the stack of dishes that I need to load into the dishwasher).

April is a difficult month at the best of times, and adding that to how the world is currently it doesn’t leave much space for crafting projects. I get so fed up with all the anxiety and triggers that autism ‘awareness’ month brings and how much it excludes autistic people. I can do without charities that want to cure me or prevent people like me from being born.

There have been a few projects that have brought me some joy and distraction thankfully. Some of those are bigger projects that I am excited to do a dedicated write up on once they’re finished.

The smaller ones, like the tiny seal and the octopus dice bag shown below, brought their own challenges. I struggled with the way the patterns were written (I can’t tell if it was because I’m used to different or if they’re just not great). That being said, experimenting with the colours and fade of the dice bag octopus has been a real joy.

picture of a knitted octopus in the colours of the pan flag

Then there’s the escape room stuff I’ve been working on. Recently I’ve gotten into a podcast called Escape this Podcast, which has been an absolute joy and really helped me find a format of tabletop games that suit me. I’m running a five part detective story set in 1920s New York for a couple of friends, which is a joy (and challenge) to work on.

I’ve been thinking a lot about puzzles in general, which all started when I started to doodle mazes in procreate. I find them very mindful to work on, but at the same time I brings up a lot of questions. What makes a maze good? what makes it too difficult or too easy? Luckily I have a few friends always happy to provide some feedback, but still it’s a struggle to find a balance.

The same goes for cryptic crosswords. I’m fairly rubbish at solving them, though watching a few streams has helped me a lot to at least get the essence (and occasionally get clues). What I enjoy most about it though is coming up with clues. But again we have the questions and doubts. What makes a good clue? What can you consider to be common knowledge? What are the rules behind a good clue? I sometimes think that being autistic can make that a lot harder, but being dyslexic doesn’t help either (and when English isn’t even your first language…)

Here’s to hoping I’ve got a few more interesting things to share next time!

Jack of all trades

Category: monthly posts

May

April 2021 – blogs are hard