Sugar Skull Wall Hanging Embroidery Project

Cut your black fabric into 16 7.5” squares and cut 2 1.25” strips and 2 1.5” strips the width of the fabric, cut 4 3” squares of black for the flower centers. Cut 8 7.5” squares of the Battilizer®. Cut the Heat N Bond Lite to fit the 4 white 5” x 6” appliques, the 4 5” x 5” flower appliques and the 4 3” x 3” black appliques.

Spray all of the applique pieces 3 or 4 times with Magic Sizing and apply the Heat N Bond Lite to the back of each applique.

Tautly hoop no-show stabilizer in your hoop. Run color stop (CS) 1 in any neutral color to stitch the placement line.

Spray adhesive on a 7.5” square of Black Kona® cloth and position over the placement line so that the fabric exceeds the placement line by ½” on all sides. Run CS 2 in water soluble thread to tack down the fabric.

Run CS 3 in red or a color to match your flower fabric as a placement line for the applique.

For the Stitch and Trim method: Remove the paper backing from the applique fabric; spray lightly with the spray adhesive and position over the placement line; run CS 4 in a thread to match the fabric to tack down the applique.

For the Stitch and Trim Method: remove the hoop from the machine, do not unhoop, place it on a flat surface; lift the excess fabric towards the tack down lines and trim the applique right next to the tack down lines; then press the applique with an applique iron.

For the Stitch and Trim method: return the hoop to the machine and run CS 5 as a placement line for the center of the flower.

For the Stitch and Trim method: Remove the paper from the back of a 3” black square, spray with adhesive and position over the placement lines. Run CS 6 in black (red was used in the photo so you can see it), to tack down the black flower center.

For the Stitch and Trim Method: Remove the hoop from the machine, do not unhoop, place the hoop on a flat surface, trim the applique right up next to the tack down lines and then press with the applique iron.

For Electronic Cutting users: These appliques were cut with the Scan N Cut. SVG and FCM files are loaded with the design files for those that can use them. When you purchase the designs the system automatically defaults to the types of embroidery files that you ordinarily use such as pes, dst, etc. To find the SVG and FCM files select “All File Types” and you will see these cutting files to download. For the Scan N Cut select the FCM files so that you can load different colors of fabrics on your mat at one time and be able to move the pieces over the appropriate fabrics. Settings may differ from machine to machine, but I always remove the paper backing from the Heat N Bond Lite, place the fabrics fabric side up and use a Speed of 4, Pressure 4, Blade 4” to cut the appliques. All of my mats have been cleaned and have had Zig 2 way glue applied to obtain the perfect stickiness. I recommend that you leave the flower pieces on the mat until you are ready to use them. The pieces are not symmetrical so you will want to note which petal you pull off of the mat first so that you can place that in the proper position when you put it onto the project.

For Electronic Cutting users: Follow Steps 1 through 5 then remove your flower applique from the mat and position in place, you will not need to spray your applique with adhesive spray, but instead iron into position as you place it onto the block. 

For Electronic Cutting users: Technically you don’t need to stitch the tack down lines in CS 4, but I run them anyway as they will show you that your applique is perfectly in place. Then Run CS 5 as a placement line for the flower center.

For Electronic Cutting users: Run CS 5 as a placement line. Iron the flower center into place, then run the tack down stitches with CS 6.

All the rest of the instructions are for all users. Follow the color chart though CS 9 or switch up the colors to embroider two different colored flowers, but stop after CS 9 runs.

At this point remove the hoop from the machine, do not unhoop, insert a black bobbin into your machine.

Spray adhesive on a square of Battilizer® and position over the embroidery on the back of the hoop.

Spray adhesive on a black square of fabric and position over the Battilizer®.

Return the hoop to the machine. Run CS 10 in water soluble thread to tack down the Battilizer® and back fabric. Run CS 11 in black to quilt the project.  

Follow Steps 3 and 4 to start your Sugar Skull Applique blocks. Run CS 3 as a placement line, in white for the skull placement line. Use CS 4 to tack down the skull applique following the techniques outlined above for using the stitch and trim or precut applique methods. Follow the color charts to stitch the embroidery on the Sugar Skulls leaving the last two CSs unstitched. Then follow Steps 16 through 19 to complete the blocks.

Lay the ¼” mark of a quilting ruler on the water soluble thread lines around each block. And trim the seam allowances to ¼”. Do to the pull of the embroidery the water soluble lines might not be exactly aligned, in these cases use the outside water soluble thread line to line up your ruler and trim.

Lay out your blocks in the desired order. This photo shows the quilt blocks as I laid them out for a wall hanging.

If you want this project to be a table runner, you may want to turn the Sugar Skull blocks so that the skulls are facing both sides of the table. The decision is up to you. The remaining instructions will apply regardless of the way you turn the skulls.

Load black thread in the top and bobbin of your sewing machine. Choose a wide zigzag stitch to join the blocks together.

Starting with the bottom two blocks of your layout, butt the inner edges of the two blocks together and zigzag down the center. Do this in black thread, the photo is shown with white thread so you can see the stitching. Join each set of two blocks together.

If necessary trim the top and or bottom edges of the joined block sets so that all are straight.

Now butt the rows of the blocks next to each other and join with the zigzag stitch until all or your rows are joined together.

Take the black sashing strips you cut in Step 1 and fold the two lengthwise outer edges into the center and press. Keep the wider and narrow strips in separate piles, the narrow strips will be applied to the back of the blocks, the wider strips will be applied to the front of the blocks.

Choose a stitch to attach the sashing. I used this spread out serpentine stitch as it blends in well with the stippling in the quilting of the blocks, but if you don’t have a stitch like this a straight stitch can be used. I used black thread as the front and back of my blocks were all quilted in black. If you have chosen another color to quilt your blocks you may want to use invisible thread in the top and bobbin of your machine to have these sashing application stitches blend into your quilt.

Lay the narrow sashing strip right side up on the horizontal rows of the back of the quilt. Stitch down both sides of the sashing strip to cover the zig zag seams. Leave about ½” of excess sashing on both sides of the quilt. Repeat for all of the horizontal rows of the quilt back.

Turn the quilt over and using the wider sashing strips cover all of the horizontal seams on the front of the wall hanging in the same manner.

Return to the back of the quilt. Stitch the narrow sashing over the vertical seam in the same manner.

Turn over to the front of the quilt, stitch the remaining wider sashing strip down the full center of the quilt in the same manner.

Trim the excess sashing and square up your blocks as necessary.

Sometimes you just have to pay attention to what your quilts are saying to you. I fully intended to bind this quilt with red fabric. As I was walking into the sewing room to apply the sashing to the quilt, this fabric was poking up out of one of my many drawers of fabrics. It seemed it was saying “Use me, Pick me!” for the binding. Though this quilt would have looked great with red or even gold binding, I was really happy with the results with this stripped binding. Cut 3 strips of binding, I used 2 ¼” binding for this project and bind as desired.

You can attach a hanging sleeve ½” below the top edged of the quilt to attach to a different type of quilt hanger or attach it with clips to a hanger like this from Ackfeld Manufacturing. Congratulations, your Sugar Skull Wall Hanging is complete.