If you’ve been looking for me (all two of you!) you haven’t found me. I’ve been appearing to idle on SL a lot, unresponsive to messages, no flickr or  blog posts for days; in short it seems as if nothing’s going on with me. And of course, nothing could be further from the truth.

I’ve been in hospital here in London receiving and beginning to recover from a full knee replacement. I’ve talked before on this blog about my husband’s cancer and why helping with Fantasy Faire and events like that is so important to me. My own disease, the one you can see anyway, is arthritis. Arthritis doesn’t just strike super-old people, although I’m hardly what would be described as young. On Wednesday, I had my right knee replaced and depending on my recovery speed, the left one will follow in its own time.

As it happens, the full knee replacement is apparently one of the most painful surgeries you can go through, and I can now vouch for this. I don’t have the energy or concentration level to role-play or write the stories about my narrators that people have begun to expect here, but I’m still taking photographs and finding cool stuff. These photos have mostly been hanging around for four days, waiting for me to have the energy and wherewithal to put them into a blog post.

So here’s the stuff Gwyneth really fell in love with at the July Fantasy Collective. The Fantasy Collective is open until the 15th of August, so you still have time to check out some of these lovely things. I’ll present the style cards with the photographs.

The Sweet Lies Tauriel Gacha has a beautiful array of dresses, and you will get a dress on every play, not just pieces and parts. This one is Box 11 (rare), and I love the detailing on the sleeves and the over skirting. Gwyneth is also wearing the Deviance Erulisse Circlet (The Priestess, Rare), Analog Dog (natch!) ‘s new(ish) updo, Sambuca. The stunning necklace is an event find from I don’t know how long ago, The Mithrind Necklace from Storybook, which is a staple of Gwyneth’s wardrobe. Here, I love how it picks up on the lattice pattern in the dress’ arm texture. The skin is 7 Deadly s{K}ins stunning Baukje, which started out life at the first July Designer’s Circle and is now available at the 7 Deadly s{K}ins Main Store. She’s in the Maitreya Mesh Body with SLink hands and feet.

Here is another beautiful dress from The Fantasy Collective, Les Encantades Ivy Dress. This is the Azur colourway. I did mention Gwyneth likes blue, right? 😉 The hair is from Ayashi, which is doing such a great job with superlong mesh hair right now; it’s called Sirena and is available at The Fantasy Collective. Necklace is once again the Storybook Mithrind Necklace, and the mask is from Spyralle, who’s long been one of my favourite SL designers. It’s called Forest Edge Mask, and you can get it from the Illusion Point event, which I’ll talk a little more about farther down. Skin is of course Baukje from 7 Deadly s{K}ins, and I can’t say enough good things about it.

The dress here is the SenzaFine Beriawen ensemble. SF really hit it out of the park on this one. The stuff is always good, but this style just makes me so happy, and additionally the tunic is completely wearable without the skirt and vice versa. The matching shoes are from The Illusion Point event, and they come in the same colourways as the clothing ensemble. You want to go to Illusion point, btw, and saying you’re just going for these shoes is a pretty good rationalisation!

Gwyneth is wearing SenzaFine Beriawen tunic and skirt in Pack 4, which includes the metallic colours, so Gwyneth really likes it. I also picked up the blues, greens and purples for her; those are Pack 2.You get a choice between gold and silver trims on each piece, as well. The necklace is Aegon from Le Forme and is still available at The Epiphany: this one is “eclipse” in silver. The tiara is also from Le Forme‘s Epiphany offerings; this one is the Aegon Tiara in Silver Sapphire (rare). The hair is, naturally, Analog Dog, the new(ish) Sambuca updo, and the skin is still the stunning Baukje from 7 Deadly s{K}ins. I just can’t get enough of this skin. Gwyneth’s eyes in these photos are actually new to her: I’d been using my own tweaked CustomEyes for her for so long I’d stopped crediting the eyes. These are from Mayfly, Luminous Mesh Eyes in Borealis. Ears are as always the Leevi Long Ears from Lumae. This is the Maitreya Lara Mesh Body with SLink hands and feet, and the shoes are SenzaFine‘s Aesbrennil Velvet-Lined Slippers, in colourways that cleverly match the ones for the Beriawen Tunic. This is pack 4, of course. They are available at the Illusion Point event: you should go there “just to buy the shoes”…. 🙂

I know I’ve rhapsodised at length about the Faida/Fallen Gods collaboration, but I’m going to do it again! They seem to have a gorgeous new dress for every event that comes along these days, and since I can’t resist a gorgeous new dress, here is Berenice. No fatpack was available, so I bought the blue ones to get the gorgeous Royale colourway, and as ever, it does not disappoint. HUD options are included as well, and you’ll see some of those later. The hair is Pepe, Athena, a gacha you can play at The Fantasy Collective. This is the rare light blonde colourway, and you don’t even want to know how much I spent to get Gwyneth’s colour in this hair. But, you know, if you want some of this hair and you don’t feel like leaving your house, just IM me in world and we can work something out. 😉 That said, if you’re not bothered about colours, the gacha is L$100 per play and the textures are all really nice. I’m always looking for ponytails and braids that work with Gwyneth’s ears, since I’m not giving those up, and that’s why I spent so much to get the colour I wanted in this one: it works with the ears! The circlet and crown combination are from ieQED, the Arwen crown (rare) and circlet (common) from the most recent Fantasy Gacha Carnival. Shoes are Deviance, M’Lady’s Slippers, from a longer-ago Fantasy Gacha Carnival. The ring is from JCNY. Body is Maitreya Lara Mesh Body, and hands and feet are SLink.

I’m presenting so many of these dresses with close-up photos so you can see the detailing on the dresses, it’s true, but also so you can get a closer look at this skin I’m currently raving about: Baukje from 7 Deadly s{K}ins. As with all of the 7DS skins, the detailing and subtle makeup on the face is worth taking a second-57th look at, and this skin has something that I really love personally, which is pronounced and visible eyeliner that does not take away from the eyes or the rest of the face. It’s eyeliner I might wear in real life if I wanted to be subtle. Yes, really.

One of the things you can do with the Berenice dress HUD is hide the bodice altogether. I quite like this look, but as Fae Queens go, Gwyneth is actually frightfully modest. So, I thought of this necklace from Zibska, called Aisling, which I haven’t had much of an opportunity to wear, immediately. I don’t remember where I got it, but you can score it at their main store, and they have a special one available in the dark rose colourway at The Lexi Project, another great event for a great cause that you should run not walk to as it has loads of worthy stuff.

This close-up photo is a good way to see how the Baukje skin employs such beautiful subtle highlighting, and you can also get a better look at the Mayfly eyes this way. I love the way the falling petals on the Zibska necklace seem to cup and enhance the breasts; as a Sidhe, Gwyneth is a bit of a titless wonder, so she needs all the help she can get in that department!

Now, I have to go get ready for physical therapy, which is the reality of my life for the next several weeks. I’m hoping to step up the blog posts for later today and later in the week, since so much is happening on the grid, but I can’t promise narrator stories or rp blogs for the foreseeable, as this post literally took three days to put together because my concentration is shot due to surgery, hospital, pain, heavy drugs, etc.

Thanks for reading.