Sewing the skull pattern

There is an order to sewing this that will cut time and frustration. Once you get the hang of it things will be a lot less complicated. These directions may seem crazy and you may have to read them twice. Although I prefer production line quilting it's best with these blocks if you first lay out the pattern at least until you get the hang of things!

Basically start from above the eyes, attach the eyes, work your way down through the nose and mouth going vertically then attach from the middle outward. For ease I have labeled a diagram with both numbers (design) and letters (background). There are 20 pieces to the design and 19 pieces to the background. It IS intricate and but it's not difficult once you've gotten a couple under your belt. I'd suggest starting with the center piece since it's the largest cuts you will be working with for the skull design. If you are confused look at the drawing under mini-skull quilt or large skull quilt.

1) Sew together 11 with J vertically
2) Sew together two sets: 4 with 7 & 12 with 16 horizontally
3) Sew together sets from Step 2 to F & K respectively
Now your layout should look like the pic on the right:

4) Sew together two sets of vertical strips: 8, I, 9, H, 10 & 13, L, 14, M, 15
5) Sew together two sets of vertical strips: 5, G & 17, N

Voila! You now have:





6) Create two sets by sewing sets from step 4 to sets from step 5 as reverse mirror images of one another. One will have the 'nostril' portion to your right and the other the 'nostril' at the left.
7) Create two sets by sewing sets from step 3 to sets from step 6 as reverse mirror images.

At this point take a deep breath- you have 3 pieces all measuring about 10.5". One is a skinny strip and two are eyes and nostrils strips.

8) Sew middle strip, created in step 1, to strips created in step 7 with each of the step 7 strips being on either side of the step 1 strip.
9) Take this larger pieces created in step 8 and attach the lower jaw which is piece 6 on the pattern drawing.

Now you have one big middle section with eyes, nostril, most of the teeth and a lower jaw. If you have something else check the pictures and instructions again.



10) Again with the creating of two strips: 2, D, 3, E & 18, O, 19, P
11) Create two strips from: B, 1, C & Q, 20, R
12) Take strips from step 11 and attach them to A; again creating mirror image pieces
13) Sew the strips from step 10 to the double strips from step 12
14) Take the largest portion, from step 9, and attach it to step 13

You did it! Now is the time to square up if need be. Repeat steps 1-14 to create 26 11.5"x11.5" blocks and only once for the large center skull panel block.