Dia de los Muertos

I'm finished with the flimsy for Boomer's Day of the Dead quilt.  

It is full of symbolic details.  Traditional marigolds.  The leaves are different styles of knife blades.  Boomer collects knives.   The funny shaped leaf is a pork chop.  Because of that time on the motorcycle trip before he got hearing aids.  I said I wanted to get to a location in time to get to the Quilt Shop.  He looked confused and said "Pork Chops?  You just ate. "

I love how the lights and blinkers turned out.   And those screws on the spine & neck are normally only visible on an xray. 

He's holding his Heart of Gold.  A Henry rifle and a version of my Pavona. 

His AR and a 44 Magnum

A clown faced skeleton in the tipping the hat pose from his professional clown picture.  Cap has his motorcycle logo on it.  The t-shirt is the one he was wearing the day he survived a Widow Maker MI.  

Now to quilt it.  

 

Benjamin Biggs Flimsy Finish

 

It's been a long time coming.  The applique on the Benjamin Biggs reproduction quilt is finally done. 

My first post on this was January 2014. 

I kept up with the block of the month pretty well for the first year, then other things became more interesting I guess. 

Fall of 2020, I pulled out the finished, or mostly finished blocks with a renewed commitment to finish.  I pushed through and got the blocks finished and sewn together by the end of the year. 

While also working on the monotonous swags, I worked out how I'm going to quilt this, by making a test block using raw edge applique with a clever plan I stole from another quilter to manage the "stupid flowers" that are in the corner of each block. 
 

I've decided on a mix of FMQ and hand applique. 

A friend bought the test sample pillow in exchange for a donation to my favorite charity.

I ordered backing fabric this weekend and found a pure white batting in the stash.  

Last night I finished the very last of the red petals on the swag borders.  I'm not sure how my swags ended up with an extra swoop on the corner from the original.... but adaptation is always good. 

Hoping to get the top marked and sandwiched this weekend!