Ember Costumes and Crafts

I did a lot of sewing and costume crafting this month! Details to come and better pictures, but I have to get ready for trick-or-treating tonight!

WOW this is late! I usually type this throughout the month as I read/play/watch, and then add pics and formatting at the end and post it, but October is kicking my butt! I have about 40 hours of sewing to do in the next few weeks and only about 10 free hours in which to sew...Halloween is like the Nanowrimo of the Costuming World! Luckily this means I will have lots of cool little projects to show off in the coming month, as I finish and take pics and write the posts for them...but it means that my regular posting schedule is thrown way out of whack! Anyway, I guess this is a cliff notes version of my September Reading/Watching/Playing post! What I'm reading The Red Threads of Fortune by JY Yang This was terrible. It had so much potential, but it didn't click with me. The prose was nice enough, but not very explicit (I didn't realize that the "raptors" she was using as scouts were actual dinosaurs rather than unspecified birds of prey until reading a review-

I bought this "Cats Bats and Jacks" Halloween Layer Cake by Riley Blake last year and turned it into a quick top last fall, and this year as part of my unfinished projects goals I pulled it out and finished it for this Halloween!  Since I had a simply pieced front, I wanted the quilting to be more intricate, so I quilted it in a spider-web design. I used black thread on the top and white thread in the bottom so that it would show up on each side better. The back is a plain black fleece that I had in my stash and the binding is satin blanket binding from Joann's.  I think it turned out great! The quilting was tricky since I did it on my home machine, and I couldn't get my walking foot to work so I used a regular quarter inch foot. I also had a scare with my machine where some spare bobbin thread got tangled in the hand wheel on the side...it was bad. I had to get my screwdrivers and start taking things apart, but I managed to fix it! Whew! Lesson learne