Dia de los Muertos...in my style

Dia de los Muertos is literally "the Day of the Dead."  It is a Mexican holiday that ties into the Catholic All Saints Day and All Souls Day.  People celebrate their dearly departed loved ones by having parties, cleaning graves, and making altars for the deceased.  It is also a big business for those selling sugar skulls and dressed skeletons. 


Lisa's Bride:  A new addition to this year's Halloween yard display

While I do not celebrate this day, three of my bests (two friends, one cousin) collect and display all sorts of paraphernalia dedicated to the phenomenon.  So, in honor of my buds, I dusted off the embroidery machine and made lace skulls (the lace is where the 'my style' comes to play).  The design I used is from Embroidery Library. 

I was having the worst time with snarls and machine repairs and wasting thread, time, energy, and water soluble stabilizer until I finally tried changing the needle for a smaller one.  Problem solved.  I feel like an idiot because I wasted a lot of stabilizer and thread, and that stuff is not cheap.  Lesson learned, though. 

So, in honor of the special strange people in my life, I added the olive and pink skull to the crazy quilt.  I also finished the last of the corner blocks this weekend, but that is for a different post.  Last night I tried adding borders but realized that this thing is way too skewed and had to remove them.  I will need to do more squaring before I get to that point.