#elf stuff

Still not able make sense of most things people said , although try …

:(

It used Up whole day yesterday .

Pixie feel very sick still . today .

Before guardian Wizard , Pixie just do what ever those big social services people say .

If fantasy.tm elves actually existed and I wasn’t one I’d be

Okay, so I’m about 3/4ths through finishing the Silmarillion and so far the dog is the only character I like. I’m definitely enjoying this story but not for the reasons I had expected. All of the characters in it are pretty extra and the plot points are silly. It’s kind of like the animated gods in Disney’s Hercules had a crossover with seasons 5-8 of Game of Thrones.

The Valar? Fancy, powerful elf god-men with pretty elf-goddess wives. Except for that one guy who was too powerful and got himself uninvited from all their parties. His name is Melkor and he likes to let everyone else know how powerful he is. He’s also the most interesting of all these elf gods and seems to have actual personality traits. Go figure 🤷🏼‍♀️

The first elves? Basically really beautiful drama queens who like to make various pretty things. The men elves Do Things while the women elves are pretty and throw away their life energy for men, either having babies or willingly giving their power away to be with mortal men, ick. Example #1 of women giving up their power is Fëanor the Edgelord. This dude is so powerful in part because his mother poured all her life energy into him. So she died and I think Fëanor became like a king or something (sorry, I can only reread these stories so many times and it’s a lot to keep track of)He’s obsessed with some fancy jewels that he makes and fights about it and eventually dies. And in the process a lot of other elves die. It’s basically like World War I when the Archduke was assassinated and now everyone is fighting everyone because of alliances and oaths and honor.

But don’t worry, Fëanor has a bunch of kids who can hold a grudge and this elf civil war is going to be a plot point for ages to come.

And then there’s the story about an immortal elven woman, whose only noteable character traits are “being pretty” and “looking good in blue”, who gives up her immortality for some hairy human dude but he’s too obsessed with his work commitments to be with her properly and take care of her so she has to go and do his job for him. Thankfully her badass hound Huan is able to carry this story through to its sad conclusion. Pretty elf lady is now mortal with her now one-handed human man lover and their dog died. She should have chosen the dog and a life of exploring but whatever, now that she’s gone the world will never know such beauty again 😐🙄

There’s also the story of this human guy who was fostered by the elves and then rage-quits society after what’s essentially middle school level name calling. He joins a gang and does bad stuff, then his longtime childhood friend comes and tries to get him to come home, saying the bullies got in trouble and he can come back, but the human dude has now found his “purpose” being a thug and isn’t going to return home to fancy elf town. The rest of the story is basically a combination of Catcher in the Rye, Oedupus Rex (another female character is introduced, her defining personality traits are amnesia and being pretty), and the parable of the Prodigal Son.

There’s also a really shifty dwarf and a dragon that probably has a PhD in psychological manipulation. There was something about a couple trees and I’m pretty sure the elf water god is ace. Also it’s tough to say whether “then it came to pass” or “get thee gone!” Is the more-used phrase in the book. So far, I would recommend this book for established Tolkien fans who are open to unexpected laughs at the wrong moments.

So long story short i decided that in the new year i would start, not one but two, big projects. this is just the first one. Now that doesn’t mean that work is just going to pick up on January 1st. No no, it has honestly started like... 3 weeks ago I am just getting to the point where I have enough to make a post about it.

I have to start with research so that I know what I am doing. So the first thing I looked in to was how to make lace. There are a fair few ways to make lace actually. There are 4 different ways to make lace that I am aware of.

Methods of Lace making: 1. Bobbin Lace, this has been historically popular. I do not have the materials to make bobbin lace (a pillow and bobbins). As I am unfamiliar with the techniques I set this one aside 2. Needle lace. This is done with a ball point needle and some lace tape. Again I am not to familiar with how it is done or the techniques required to make it. Though i did learn that the House of Worth was big on this lace technique back in the day. Pretty neat. 3. Knitting lace. At the time of my choice of method to make the robe I didn’t have the needles required to make lace this way. However with the amount of work that I have to do I decided not to make the robe using this method. 4. Crochet Lace, or Irish lace. So some history about Irish lace. It became super popular in Ireland during the potato famine for women to learn how to make crochet lace as a form of income. Irish lace can be done in a follow a pattern method or in a more of a free style way. Make a mesh lace backdrop in the shape you need or place or motifs the way you want them and then connect them as needed with a crochet method. I will be making the robe in this method for the ease of my sanity. Next, can clothes be made from Lace? The simple answer is yes. People do it all the time, gloves, hats, veils, scarves. I didn’t know if it could be done for something the scale of a robe though. So with the help of some lovely people i have met in the last month (thank you crochet crisis) I have found some pretty interesting old school books and low and behold I found these gems.

Now looking at these if it can be done for these it can be done for a robe. I was super excited to see these. The book these beauties can be found is is here. There is obviously more in the book but these are the two things that excited me the most. It proved that it could be done! The Robe plan: I have a plan. Kind of. Okay not really but it is something of a plan. I will be taking a robe sewing pattern (one that I haven not selected yet.) And use that as my base for the lace robe. It has to be long i want it touching the floor. I will make border lace and use it to surround each block of the sewing pattern. I will fill the section with a mesh of my choice and then attach my motifs.

Motifs: Ideally i will be using a lot of flowers, leaf's, butterflies and moths. Extreme detail is something that elves strive for in most if not all settings. They live long lives wouldn’t they make things as detailed as they can. I want a lot of the imagery I am using to be of nature. Other notes: So apparently there is this stuff called Crochet Thread. This is for making lace. Cotton lace that is as I don’t think I have found anything for Crochet thread in silk or wool. This is smaller then lace weight yarn. Apparently the smaller you get the smaller your motifs. Not surprising really. The smaller your thread the more of it that has to go into your work. I think I will be doing this Project in lace weight yarn. I haven’t decided yet but really it will come down to cost over time really, or I guess once I decided on colours (because yes we can make this colourfull) or just white i can buy things in bulk. 

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No spoilers.

You may like it if you're interested in: enemies to lovers, elf/fae world and magic, retellings of Hades and Persephone but also the Beauty and the Beast, so then also arranged marriage, a female heroine (who is not annoying) and first pov

For other book reviews click here.

This book was a nice surprise.

I had zero expectations for it, was lured in by the tropes represented. A tale inspired by the dynamics between Hades and Persephone and of the Beauty and the Beast.

And while they're certainly there and the core of the book, there's so much more.