A Little Fun with Skull Blocks

This is another experiment spurred on by the Chicago Modern Quilt Guild's meeting all about the drunkard's path block. For some reason the shape of skulls carved into early American grave markers that I saw in Charlotte, SC last summer made me think of using this accuquilt drunkard's path die to make some skull blocks.

My sketch for this one was pretty basic - I just wanted to try and see what it would look like. Seems just replacing one of the four blocks with a "jawbone" would create a skull shape.

I stitched up a tester block late one night. This was also a great opportunity for me to play with free-motion quilting. Because it's not my style, I am primarily a straight line quilter! And seriously, FMQ is a bit intimidating.

The test block turned out pretty dang good! Next I wanted to see how the blocks would look stitched up with a patterned fabric, and how they would fit together. I dug out some vintage bright colored scraps from the scrap bin (I may have had springtime on my mind, because it looks a lot like spring fabric, right?).

I used free-motion stitches to add features to each of the skulls. It started to look festive and sugar-skull-like, so I filled in around with some flowers and leaves, and I finished it off to be a little springtime skull mini-quilt.

I don't know what will happen next with this idea, or if I will take this any further, but it was definitely a fun little experiment!