Dia de los Muertos Cat

Several months ago, I participated in my first mini swap through Instagram. Hosted by a member of my guild, the theme was Halloween. The hostess gave each one of us the name of another participant, along with their fabric and Halloween theme likes and dislikes. Then we were to make a mini, under 24", for this person, and this is what I sent.

My fellow swapper liked the same fabrics as me: orange, purple, black, green, and silver. But she also liked vintage Halloween images, and Dia de los Muertos, two styles which are totally out of my range. What to do? Well, it helped that she also liked cats and spiders.

Googling some Day of the Dead photos, I got an idea to make a cat face in that style. Finding a floral fabric which I could apply small bits of fusible to and cut out,

supplied all of the pieces for decoration.

Freehanding a cat head onto fusible, then ultimately on to a white fabric, bits and pieces of the floral fabric were placed around the face.

After carefully fusing everything down, the cat face was fused to a black piece which had a small edging and the ears. My only mistake was having so many layers of fusible--wish I had cut out the centers to leave a 1/4" edge of fusible. Live and learn!

Now the whole head is fused to an orange mottled piece, and everything gets stitched down with black thread, to add emphasis. 

A simple border of her favorite Halloween colors was added, with some skeleton fabric squares in the corners. Stitch in the ditch quilting was all that was required here.

As for the background, it got a spider web, after drawing it on Golden Threads Quilting Paper, 

so that everything would line up. I sent her some spider buttons, with her choice as to where to place a spider. Add a with a fun orange polka dot binding, some tabs for hanging, a label, and it's done! FYI, it measures around 12" square.

Now, a different person made a mini for me, using my favorite colors, and of course, cats.

Adorable! I currently have it topping one of my tables in the living room, which is now full of all things fall--lots of orange in there! Even though I don't wear orange well (pink girl--if you hadn't noticed!), I love the reds, oranges, and yellows of fall! That's my New England childhood coming through.

Have a great day quilting!