Day of the Dead Snowball Quilt (#64)

Textile house Alexander Henry never disappoints Day of the Dead fans with their colorful & glorious designs. The main problem I find with these large repeat novelty fabrics is that they don't do well cut up into tiny quilt pieces. Fussy cutting can ruin the motif as well as waste fabric.

I made grocery bags out of Cartas Marcadas Stamps by cutting a horizontal chunk. This was originally my cheater quilt idea - just leave the fabric as is. Unfortunately the non-black version of this pattern looked really weak & needed some color.

Enter the snowball block with my Accuquilt die - a large shape that didn't conflict with the rectangles and showed the details of the design - perfect.

The end result is a really nice jumble of color and images - every snowball holds some interest with a different skeleton.  Quilted with Aurifil 50wt. #2360 in a wavy stitch following the seams and through the middle of the blocks - this thread complements the brown accent corners.

A deep brown minky on the back harmonizes with one of my favorite blender fabrics: Mix Master Dot to Dot by Robert Kaufman (which is sadly not available much anymore).

Materials:
Folklorico/Cartas Marcadas Bright by Alexander Henry
Mix Master Dot to Dot / ccoca / Robert Kaufman
Skinny Strips in Spice / Laura Gunn (binding)
Dimple Dot minky brown
Warm and White batting
Aurifil 50wt. #2360
Size: 58" x 74"
December 2016