Ember Costumes and Crafts

We MOVED! A few weeks ago we closed on a house a few blocks from where we are currently renting, and yesterday, we moved!  We are so grateful and blessed, and so thankful for the people in our lives who made this possible.  So instead of sewing, this month I have been working on moving!    John epoxied the floor, my dad hung some cabinets and added lights and switches, and we all painted the garage!  (Even Rosemary helped paint!) We got new furniture to set up (bunk beds for boys)  Made some repairs  And of course...so much packing!!! and now...so much unpacking!!! This is how me and Rosemary feel about unpacking:  Exhausted!!

 Whoohoo! Look at me getting this up at the end of the month instead of several months late!  Reading  Morning Star (Red Rising Book #3) by Pierce Brown This was everything I could have wanted for the ending of this trilogy. Honestly, this series is one of the best things I have read in years. It continued to surprise me and I absolutely couldn't put it down. I thought about it all the time when I wasn't reading it, and I texted John my reactions repeatedly throughout my reading of the entire series. The world-building, the technology, the plot, the characters both good and bad, the themes...it was all incredible. If you like sci-fi even a little bit, you should read this series NEXT. The Three-Body Problem by Liu Cixin This was a puzzling book, kind of slow and not what I was expecting. It reminds me of some of the Ender books, and the characters are not very sympathetic--in fact, it kinda seems like they're all bad guys.. It was interesting, but I didn't particularly

 Sometimes when I get stressed--like when there was a winter storm hitting Central Texas and the roads were impassible, electricity and water are on the fritz, and we were worried that our pipes could burst at any time even though we are doing every possible thing to prevent that--I like to make quick, simple, pointless projects. Like doll clothes and accessories! Fortunately, we never actually lost power or heat, and our pipes were okay, but it it was iffy there for a while. Gunnar did have to drive some on the icy roads (He is an essential worker) which was scary, but thankfully he was fine.  Such was it that I made these:  A doll-sized sleeping bag and matching duffel! These were made from a free nylon rucksack style bag that I threw in my fabric stash with the idea of making a doll raincoat or tent or something. (And I still have an orange one to mess around with as well.) It is quilted with two layers of scrap batting and leftover cotton from masks, and has a very nice zipper alon

Reading  So I read the rest of the Cradle Books! (The ones that are out so far, anyway) Cradle #2  Soulsmith by Will Wight Linden gets thrown into the deep end (locked in a pit with a bunch of monsters, anyway) and has to level up to get out! He starts down the path as a ninja artificer! Fun!  Cradle #3 Blackflame by Will Wight The two heroes are being manipulated it the nicest possible way and there is nothing that they can do about it. The benefits are worth the risk, obviously, and there are secrets being kept from them, obviously, but watching them navigate their new family is still fun. (Seriously, I thought the turtle was going to kill Linden!) Cradle #4 Skysworn by Will Wight A big duel, and a lot of zooming out and realizing just how small and puny our heroes really are. Also, magical prosthetic limbs!   Cradle #5  Ghostwater by Will Wight This was like an underwater D&D dungeon crawl featuring Wheatley from Portal 2, in the best possible way. Wonderful!  Cradle #6 Underlor

I finished the last of my three Stargazer Quilts that I had planned! This one is for my dear friend Collen, and I use a bunch of batiks, mostly from Lunn Fabrics on etsy, in shades of dark green, dark blue, and golden yellow. After doing two of these, you would think that I'd be a pro at these by now, but somehow I still managed to mess up a few things! Luckily they were easily fixed with some piecing, but still frustrating! Overall, it went together pretty smoothly and I love how it turned out! And more importantly, so did Colleen! <3   The back is dark green cuddle minky, which I used on my purple Stargazer as well (and I wish I had used minky on Alli's too) to make it extra cozy. the quilting is free-motion in the stars and wavy lines from end to end on the rest. I did it all, as usual, on my Singer CG 550 home sewing machine. Toddler for scale My kids were all sad that I was giving it away! 

The Hexes Are Done!!! I was kinda in shock when I finished. I wasn't sure what to do with myself. What will I do while I watch T.V. now? Just sit there like a lazy log?? It almost overwhelmed me, keeping me from enjoying the fact that all the hexes were sewn together into a magnificent masterpiece of actual-size Catan hexagons. It includes 513 land hexes and 479 water hexes for a total of 992 total hexes! Behold:  I had to stand on a stepladder to take this picture. It is currently about 78 inches tall and 105 inches long. My "map" and a pic while standing in my kitchen Rosemary and Grogu "helping" me take pics. Now I have to decide how to finish the edges/add a border, and then it will be time for quilting!! I do want it to be a bit more square, particularly I want to add some length to the top and bottom. I cannot just add more rows of water hexies because this is all the water fabric I have left:  I actually have quite a lot of yardage of the honeycomb fabric