#bookish stuff

apollo who is the god of prophecy? apollo whose prophetic powers were a of gift of cassandra? fucking cassandra of troy, the mad oracle, sister to hector? cassandra who rejected him?

cassandra who was then cursed to never be believed about her visions. cassandra who saw her kingdom fall and her brothers die and her own murder play out. cassandra whose eyes were blessed and doomed but whose voice was denied. by apollo.

apollo who was supposed to help hector triumph. apollo who would rather let the seer be harked as hysterical and mad than compromise his ego. apollo who let even his champion be deaf to the prophecies of their loss. of his own death.

hector who was graced by apollo. hector, brother of all-seeing cassandra. hector who was denied the warnings of their fates by the god who was meant to guide him. hector, who his patron deity would rather let die and be disgraced and have his corpse paraded around his horrified, beloved city and leave his wife a widow and his son vulnerable to his own murder and his loving king-father left to beg the killer of his son for a cold dead body.

hector who was blessed by apollo to die a gruesome death before his doomed city because apollo would rather punish his sister than keep him alive. cassandra knew, cassandra tried to tell him, to tell anyone. apollo wouldn't allow it.

the hubris and wrath of a god always triumphs over their own favor. aphrodiate would rather her beloved son be miserable than concede to a mortal woman, zephyr would rather kill the mortal he loves than suffer the jealousy and shame of watching him with another god.

I very recently made this crochet book sleeve, and I was asked to share the pattern I used. I did not follow any patter found online, I crafted one myself and here's how I did it. I am no expert in crochet, and I improvised but it turned out pretty nice. I personally used some left over yarn from other projects, but you can use any that you like. I know that books have very different sizes depending on the coutry they are printed it, the English/ USA editions I have are totally differnt from the majority of my books in Italian, so I'd advise to take your own mesurements depending on the average book size in your country. I personally decided to mesure up an hardcover book in order to have a slightly bigger book sleeve. The number of chains you create to start of course depends on the size of the yarn you pick, I advise to start with a ruler nearby so that you can check the mesurements depending on your own plan. The book I picked as reference for the mesures was approximately 23x16x3.5 cm. I therefore created a plan using slightly bigger measures: 25x18x5 cm.

My original plan and a drawing to hopefully make things a but clearer for you.

I was lazy so I decided to create the main structure with just three panels: one for the front, one with the same measures for the back, and a long strip to make both sides and the bottom. It was certainly quicker, but I do not recommend doing as I did. I would recommend dividing this in three separate pieces two for the sides and one for the bottom. Here's why: by doing as I did the bottom is not perfectly square, and it can be a little harder to sew together with the front and back. If you create three separate pieces it might take a bit more time, but believe me it will be much better. Lastly I created a smaller panel for the front pocket, that had the same lenght measure as the front, but was about half of its height. I recommend doing all the different pieces first and only after sew them together. I personally decided to use a tunisian stitch for the all the panels except for the pocket which I made with an alpine stitch. I think the contrasting stitch looks nice, but honestly do whatever you like best. After having all your panels firstly sew the pocket to the front panel, and just after that start attaching the sides and bottom. Remember to saw with the right sides facing each other, so that the stitches won't show in the end result (except for the front pocket, that you'll have to sew on top of the front panel in the way it will be at the end). When you are done attaching all the panels you can add a button and a string to close it on top and you are done.