Ember Costumes and Crafts

 Reading The Dresden Files   Since Jim Butcher has two new Dresden Files books coming out this year ( Peace Talks #16 & Battle Ground #17) after a several-year hiatus on the series, Gunnar, John, Diana, and I are all rereading the series. John started his reread with Changes (#12), but Gunnar and I both started with Storm Front (#1). Currently I'm on Ghost Story (#13) (admittedly one of my least favorites) and then a few more till I hit the new books! I hope to post a review of the new books and the series soon. I'm glad that I didn't finish in time to read Peace Talks before Battle Ground hits, because according to John it was a major cliffhanger...almost as if it was too long and the publishers forced Jim Butcher to cut it in half...hmmm.  In case you don't know, The Dresden Files follows wizard and private detective Harry Dresden as he fights bad guys and makes enemies (and very occasionally friends) in the supernatural modern world of Chicago. James saw

I saw this on pinterest and immediately wanted to make it! I used scraps from my stargazer quilt project including the treacherous little half square triangles that gave me so much trouble, trimmed up some more squares from the leftovers, and put it together in one afternoon. It was very fiddly with all the little tiny squares, but I'm very pleased with how it came out! I want to make some sort of extra pillow or something out of the scraps from the other Stargazer quilts too!  The back is just some leftover minky but you can see the quilting:  It's hanging up in my office and I like that it's visible in the background when I make zoom calls. The Quarantine has me feeling pretty gloomy this week...it's the little things that help! 

 IT IS TIME to start sewing my giant land-hexes into a quilt!  I have spent the last several months sewing a ring of water hexes around the outside of each land continent.  Pictured here are 513 Land Hexes and 216 Water Hexes for a total of 729 hexes (so far!) Here is the diagram of how I want to sew them together. Pink outline is the lands and orange is the waters already attached to each land. I am MUCH happier with these bright blue water hexes compared the the gray-blue ones I had made previously.  Trying to figure out the best order to sew things together...left to right or center outwards?? I've been safety pinning notes to each edge of the big hexes to remind me of which side to connect to what! Plus filling in all the little gaps.  This project really feels like it's moving along!  Previous Installments: Starting My Dream Quilt Catan Hexagon Quilt Update #1 Catan Hexagon Quilt Update #2 Catan Hexagon Quilt Update #3