Ember Costumes and Crafts

As I started cleaning out and organizing my crafting closet, I of course came across a pile of unfinished projects languishing at the back. They were abandoned for a variety of reasons over the past years from frustration to mistakes to lack of materials to just plain being unable to decide what to do next!

Over the next few months I would like to try and finish one of these unfinished projects each month...or get rid of them.

Magenta Baby Quilt - Started while I had morning sickness and can't look at it without feeling sick

Umbrella Quilt - It was ugly and I had no idea how to make it not ugly

Halloween Quilt - top finished, needs to be quilted

Foxes Baby Quilt - top finished, needs to be quilted

College T-Shirt quilt - Ran out of interfacing, got frustrated with ironing all the old t-shirts

Gunnar's Renfair Doublet - Got overwhelmed by several mistakes and shoved it aside

Red and Bluebirds Garden Quilt - I messed up and couldn't figure out how to save it!

This channel is a favorite of everyone in the house! This guy lives in Australia and does experiments in primitive living and technology in the rain forest near his house. He doesn't live out there full time, but he he shows in simple detail how one might go about making things like huts, ovens, and gardens out of only things that he can find in the forest.

His videos don't come out very often, but it's always exciting when he does publish one!

Also be sure to turn on the Closed Captions! There is no narration, so all the explanations are in the captions.

What I'm Reading Wheel of Time #14 A Memory of Light by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson DONE! I've officially finished all 14 of the Wheel of Time books! I would like to do an in depth spoiler-ful review of the series soon, but for now I'll stick to my impression of the final book: WORTH IT.

It was a long road with some slogging along the way, but this final segment really lives up to the hype. It ties up pretty much all the loose threads in very satisfying ways, there are enough character deaths that I don't feel like Tarmon Gai'don was too easy, but enough happy endings that I don't feel like the whole slog was for nothing either. Sanderson did a great job of cutting out unnecessary characters and descriptions and keeping to the meat of what was happening. I'm excited that Gunnar is reading it now, and definitely looking forward to Amazon's adaptation coming out in a year or two!
The 19th Wife by David EbershoffI needed a quick easy non-fantasy r…

Sunday was Father's Day, and Gunnar took the boys to Austin Comicon! I stayed home with the little kids this time, but maybe next year we can all go! They apparently had a ton of fun at the Jedi Academy, the kid's magic show, the science booth, and looking at all the costumes. Jack really wanted to go to the science demo, but it was full by the time they got back from lunch. Speaking of lunch, eat before you go because three hot dogs and a drink was $50 at the Cedar Park HEB Center! I loved getting picture updates through the day. Maybe next year I'll make them some Jedi costumes to wear! 
Jack and James at the kid's Jedi Academy!  

 James said "I saw your movie! Do you know Miles Morales??" 
"We didn't know that R2D2 was alive!" 

Another historical doll outfit! This dress was made with the Thimbles and Acorns pattern "Laura and Mary." Which is based on a photo of Laura and Mary Ingalls taken in 1880.

I made this riiight before Miles was born, a small project to lift my lumbering spirits! I had a little trouble with the cuffs--entirely the fault of my brain, not the pattern--and I had to try three times to get them right, but otherwise it was a very easy, straightforward project. The fabric is just a cotton quilting cotton from my stash and the cute button is from my big bucket of estate-sale buttons.

I've read the Little House books countless times through my life and always loved them. In fact, they were what got me interested in sewing to begin with when I was a little girl! My first ever sewing project was a bonnet for one of my dolls, followed by a bonnet for me! I had blue dress that reminded me of the one in the picture on the cover of "On the Banks of Plum Creek (my favorite Little …

I LOVE watching costume-making videos on Youtube, and Morgan Donner is one of my favorites! She mostly focuses on medieval reenactment which is her hobby, but like the video below, she has projects from lots of different eras. Check out her channel!