Ember Costumes and Crafts

Angela and John as Ukyo and Ryoga from Ranma 1/2, plus Nick in a Party City Spider-Man suit. Way back in 2001, John and I were in middle school. We had loved Sailor Moon and Pokemon for years by then, and through our local comic book shop and our friends, we started watching other anime like Ranma 1/2 and Tenchi and Inuyasha. We LOVED it! We wanted to dress up as our favorite characters for Halloween, and for Austin's very first anime convention, Ushi-con!  Back then we didn't have Youtube or costume tutorial websites or anything. We were on our own. So we found an old Singer sewing machine at a garage sale (which was so wonky that we needed channel-lock pliers every time we wanted to wind up a new bobbin) got our parents to take us to Hobby Lobby for fabric, and we taught ourselves to sew! We didn't know how to use patterns, so we did a combination of modeling off of our own clothes and draping and pinning things on ourselves. We were very determined! We made o

A few weeks ago a friend of mine showed me a project she was working on--a hexagon quilt made from a bunch (thousands) of quarter-sized hexagons. She had a little plastic craft box that she kept in her purse for when she had some down-time she would work on English paper piecing hexagons and stitching them into little seven-hex flowers. She made three or so flowers a month and planned to just collect them for years until she had enough to make a king-sized quilt. It was super cool-and she agreed to teach me English paper piecing so that I could make my own hexagon quilt:  The Catan Quilt!  I've wanted to make a Catan-themed quilt for a very long time. The game Settlers of Catan holds a very special place in my heart and means a lot to my family and my group of friends. It was one of the first "euro" board games that we got into, so much so that my best friends Tiffany and Tom have matching Settlers of Catan tattoos and a collection of over 200 board games

Link and a little fairy!  So there's a story behind this tunic...last October John's work was having a costume contest, and because it was just work and not a con or something, John ordered a tunic from China on ebay for super cheap. When it arrived, we saw why exactly you shouldn't order a costume from China on ebay for super cheap. It was child sized (even though he ordered men's medium!) the design was just laser-cut stickers barely sticking to the fabric, and the material was really thin.  So with a week until Halloween, John and I made a new one. He bought some nice heavy bright blue cotton twill, I whipped it up into a tunic, and he hand-stitched thin white bias tape into the design you see below. I think it turned out pretty good! Needless to say, with his accessories and his little fairy companion, he won the costume contest at work and at our friend's Halloween party. Because we're just extra that way.    Homemade leather sword st

Poor Lilly broke her leg on the 4th of July at my house when she fell off of my porch. It was only a 6 inch step! Rosemary hung out with her on the kayak and in the wagon.  I just wanted to take a minute and talk about my plans and goals for this blog. Embercostumes started out as a website with the blog on the side, but the website was difficult to maintain and eventually I stopped updating both. (Though neither John nor I stopped crafting and making things!) When I decided to come back to Embercostumes, I thought it best to archive the website and just focus on blogging about our sewing and crafting--but there is a lot of content on that website that I'd like to share. Old costumes, tutorials, articles, etc. I'd like to share those on the blog too as well as new stuff. I've also considered blogging a little bit more about real-life stuff on the blog too, but not quite into the realm of the mommy blogger. While I love reading mommyblogs, that's not what I have in