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 ...

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

I have 5 cousins expecting babies in the next 6 months! The soonest is baby Beckett, who is due in October. I let my cousin Alexa pick out the fabric from my stash, and then finished this just in time for her baby shower last weekend.  It took me a long time to decide on a design, but ended up going with my Lori Holt Half-Hex template, then the boys helped me try out a bunch of different designs. I really liked James' idea for this gradation of blues, but I felt like it needed something more for interest. I appliqued some tiny fussy-cut hexagons onto the middle of middle hexes and echoed the hexes in the quilting. I ordered navy blue minky for the back, added a navy blue satin blanket binding, and here it is!   

Everyone needs another quarantine project, right? Because crafters live in a constant state of wanting to start another project and procrastinating on the ones that actually have due dates, right? (*cougbabyquiltgiftscough*) And even during quarantine, when my out-of-the-house responsibilities have been reduced to nothing, I crave the feeling of having too much on my plate.  Actually, I have nothing to spend my fun money on except fabric right now. Why do I need clothes or makeup if I never go anywhere? And if I never go anywhere, I'm not using my money for movies and dates and restaurants. So instead, I'm buying ALL THE FABRIC. I am a fabric buying machine. Like, I'm scared that all the good fabric will get used up for masks and there won't be any good fabric left for crafting. And also I'm bored and I fill my boredom with online fabric shopping. Quarantine is doing strange things to my head. Today I went for a run and it was 78% humidity and I stepped (ge...

As a lover of fantasy, historical, and DIY, the youtube genre of Chateau bloggers is a goldmine. My favorites are  The Chateau Diaries  and Doing it Ourselves , which feature English families who move to France, buy a run-down Chateau, and fix it up. It is AMAZING escapism, extremely charming, and so gratifying to see these old buildings explored and renovated. They are obviously labors of love, and I love to watch them. Maybe someday I can visit one! 

I have tried a LOT of thimbles over the years, and until recently, just wished that my middle right finger would just be thick and leathery and calloused forever so I wouldn't have to deal with re-callousing it whenever I had to do a bunch of hand sewing! I hate metal thimbles because I can't feel my needle and they are slippery. I tried a leather thimble but had a similar problem--it was either too thin and didn't protect me, or it was too thick and I couldn't feel the needle. I also had a problem with sizing--even a tiny bit too tight and my finger goes numb. Too loose and it just falls off and is lost forever.  This changed a few months ago when I went in to Honey Bee Quilt Shop in Austin to see if they had any good batiks for my Catan Quilt ocean hexes. When I was at the checkout, I saw this display and was amazed because I had never seen plastic thimbles before, nor had the ability to try on a variety of sizes. They were only 50 cents anyway, so I got bought a yell...