Nerd Moment: Fan-art Win

While the substance of "The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug" was initially a colossal disappointment, in the ensuing weeks I've at least managed to appreciate the scenery, soundtrack, and almost every clip of Legolas.  I've been trying to imagine Thranduil's cavern palace for years.  Also, just hearing them say some of the token Sindarin words I've been using in fanfiction since I was eighteen was fabulous.

Meanwhile, considering myself an unauthorized authority on all things Thranduil, I wasn't thrilled with Lee Pace's incarnation of the character.  I do approve his voice, if he could just speak without the affected zombie cadence Peter Jackson's ruling Elves seem to favor.  Just spit it out already.

The upside is that the new movies have inspired scads of fan-art online, most of which is blah, some of which is humorous, and a very few of which are absolute gems.

This was the first and only decent artist rendering of Thranduil I could find, meeting Celeborn in Greenwood after the War of the Ring.  No idea who the artist actually is.  The fact that it doesn't show his face just made it less problematic.  Though, it would be nice to not have to imagine Thranduil's face all the time, and Lee Pace just doesn't cut it.

Huzzah!  An idle internet search turned up this beauty by NaSyu, which for all intents and purposes looks like somebody printed my mental image on canvas.  If I could just learn to draw faces, we wouldn't have these problems.  In the meantime, I have this, which I open on my laptop whenever I attempt to write these days.

Now for the bonus round!  Last night I actually found an exceptionally good young Thranduil by Brilcrist.  And his eyes are actually green!  SCORE!  I'll have to keep periodically checking Google Images for further developments.

Add this just because it's cute.  ^_^

Life Happens

Contrary to all indications to the contrary, the blog has not died.

Christmas was so swamped with projects and commissions that we didn't even decorate, which is a first for me.  The only thing we did put out was the Advent wreath, and it's still out.

After all the chaos died down, we realized I had accidently turned up pregnant.  January crawled by in a haze of relentless morning (and noon and evening) sickness, finally resolving itself in one distinct bleeding episode and two weeks of blood tests and cryptic ultrasounds.  Eventually it was determined that I had miscarried very early but that the placenta was alive and well and determined to make me sick indefinitely.  A D&C was successfully completed yesterday afternoon.

That is basically what has been consuming our lives.  My OBGYN group wants to finally do some follow-up to try to pinpoint what the problem is, but frankly I can't be bothered to care anymore.  I really don't care.  If I could have my way, I would never be pregnant again.  I'll humor the doctors for a while, but if they want me to do months and months of charting and testing and injections and procedures, I'm going to beg off.  I'm not going to cross state lines; I'm not going to invest excessive amounts of time or money.  I refuse to let the best years of my life be consumed by wasted efforts to make my decrepit reproductive system function normally.  Life is too short for that much pointless vomit.  Hope is dead.  Hope makes us miserable.  We're done.  We've accepted it.  Now, let's adopt some kids and get on with our lives.  Finito.

Florian Casimir
January, 2014
5-6 weeks

Needlework Zombie

Need sleep.  I've been making custom Christmas stockings for several years now, but each year they seem to get more elaborate and eat up more of my Advent with desperate late nights and entire days spent with needle in hand.  I stayed up until 3:30 AM this morning, powered by Rockstar, and now the tips of my right thumb and index finger feel like I've bruised the bone squeezing the tiny beading needle all night and all day yesterday . . . and all the day before, etc.

Here are some of the finished results for this year.  These were for some cousins in Montana, made to match one I made for their son two years ago.  These are all just craft felt on denim, cut by hand, assembled by hand, painted by hand, and sewn down along every edge by hand.  Even the letters are cut by hand from printed templates and hand beaded.

I'm starting to feel like it's giving me carpal tunnel issues.  I wouldn't recommend this kind of minute hand-stitching to anyone who has a life.  These were actually finished a few weeks ago, but I had a hard time getting decent pictures with the lighting around here.  Now I'm frantically working on two more which are even more elaborate, each with several celtic knots.  Imagine sewing all along the borders of a celtic knot.  

Yeah, it takes about 12-24 man-hours each.  We haven't quite figured out when during the course of all this the housework is supposed to get done.  The dog feels neglected.

It's not that I mind doing it, but deadlines are a killer.  Sometimes I would just rather do something else for a while.