Ember Costumes and Crafts

I decided needed a "spare" baby quilt for my little girl because the one I made for her specifically was so beautiful that I couldn't help but hang it up on the wall of her nursery. Luckily, in a burst of crazy fabric buying I had a fat quarter of Lewis & Irene "Make a Wish" fabric from the Fat Quarter Shop that I had bought because of the most amazingly cute little fairies and dandelions hidden in it, and also because I LOVE pastel colors paired with navy blue. For the pattern, I wanted to try out half square triangles per YouTube . But I didn't like how it was looking, so cut those in half again to make quarter square triangles. The small, delicate print looked much better with smaller blocks. I thought about placing them in a certain way, but in the end just did a randomized assortment that I thought looked nice. In person, the navy blue feels less abrupt. I finished it off with a light pink minky backing, quilted in the ditch, and added a pink...

As soon as I found out that I was having a little girl, I knew that I wanted to make a lavender and teal quilt. I have also always wanted to make a quilt with tiny hexagons...This quilt is the culmination of a ton of learning, planning, and near-disasters!  As I said, hexagons are hard. So when I saw Missouri Star Quilt Company's tutorial with the Half-Hex ruler , I snapped one up and made this quilt with the large ruler to see how it worked before tackling the small ruler. Confident with the ruler's workings, I started looking for the perfect fabric and found this fat quarter pack and fell in love. The line is called "Lavishmint" from Camelot Fabrics. I ordered it online from Missouri Star Quilt Company and waited excitedly...and it never came. Finally I called and they said that oops, they were out, sorry. They refunded my money and gave me a $10 credit. I was WRECKED. (Blame the hormones!) and looked everywhere on the web to find it, and it was sol...

Two days before my third baby's Baptism, my mom asked me if I had bought a gown for her to wear. I watched the horror unfold on her face as I flippantly suggested just putting my baby in a white onesie and not worrying about it. My saint of a mother told me firmly that she will buy a gown herself rather than let that happen! So I took my wedding dress, which while it wasn't particularly pretty, was made of gorgeous white dupioni silk, and cut it up and made a christening gown for my baby. Using a wedding dress in this way was something I had heard about somewhere a while back, but probably wouldn't have thought of it except that my mom had brought my dress over that week when she was cleaning out the upstairs closet in my old bedroom at her house. It wasn't a hard choice either. As I tackled this project, I was surprised at every single step--by how easy it was. For the first time since I started costuming 15 years ago, I know how to do everything. Drafting patterns...

I've always wanted to make a pinwheel quilt, so for my cousin's baby shower I made this one! I picked out the fabric at a local quilting shop  and used a Youtube tutorial from Missouri Star Quilt Company . In fact, here's a secret: everything I know about quilting I learned from Youtube. There will be quite a few youtube links upcoming as I post more pics of the quilts I've done this winter! I didn't have a ton of time for pictures of this particular quilt because, of course, like any good crafter, I finished it the morning of the baby shower. The big quite squares have cute little pirate boys on them, and the pinwheel blocks have a few nautical/fish themed fabrics thrown in.

In the past year I've gotten really into making baby quilts! I got pregnant in August with my third baby and set to nesting in a crazy flurry of quilting! I made this quilt for my friend who was due with a little girl in January. I've always wanted to make a hexagon quilt, with the end goal of making a queen sized Settlers of Catan quilt. Unfortunately, my quilting skills weren't up to doing paper piecing or precision cutting or anything. I decided I needed to work my way up to more complicated projects before I tackle something like a queen hex quilt.  In the meantime, I saw a tutorial on youtube that used Lori Holt's Half-Hex ruler template  and I thought I'd give it a try. I had this adorable fabric from a fat-quarter bundle from Joann's Fabrics that reminded me of my friend (girly without being too much pink), and set to work!  I think that the front turned out really good! I used 55 half-hexes in the large size and added a border in green a...

             Jack is obsessed with sharks, in case you didn't know. He insisted on being a shark for Halloween, but unfortunately we could not find a shark costume at any of the three Halloween stores we went to. Cue mama to take out my dusty sewing machine and get to work! I used blue and white fleece, some black fabric paint for the eyes and gills, some stuffing for the fin, and a long zipper up the side to help him get it on and off. The pattern is of my own spur-of-the-moment design, inspired by  " Left Shark " of course, from that infamous Katy Perry Superbowl show.

Gee, it's been a while huh? Well I'm going to go ahead and try to catch up a bit and post a few of the things we've done over the past few years in the upcoming weeks as I scrounge my hard drive for photos. Dread Pirate Roberts  This is from March of 2016, made for the Scarborough Fair in Central Texas. There's not a whole lot to it, but did draft this little pirate shirt from scratch by looking at one of Jack's 4T dress shirts! I've made so many of these renfair/pirate shirts by now that I could probably do it in my sleep. (Did I make an actual pattern for it? No. No I did not. Sorry!) The tiny version went together in just a few hours out of leftover grown-up fabric. It's a very nice black linen. The mask is some thick felt I had lying around, attached with bit of elastic and the bandana was a freebie from long long ago.The tie is some suede lacing that I bought a whole spool of after continuously running out of lacing.  John cut a quick bel...