Buttons Skull

Simi Warah made this button skull for a fabric sketch book. I'm partial to any art involving sewing. This skull uses the variety of white buttons and tulle in a smart way to define the skull shape. A fabric sketch book isn't something I see often. You can see more of Simi's work on her blog, Buttons and Paint.

We want to share your skull art! Be a part of the Skull-A-Day project. Details are HERE.

Felt Sugar Skull

Lydia Leigh from Sheffield, UK, created this felt sugar skull. I love seeing hand made toys and soft sculptures like this. I've been sewing for a few decades, but sadly I'm terrible with soft toys. There is no indicator of scale for this skull. I'm hoping it's human sized, as that would make for amusing photos...and a lovely pillow.

3D Quilted Skull

Rebekah Kortokraks, aka Trixie Delite, of Brighton, UK, created this 3D quilted textile skull. She explained "The skull represents death and darkness. As the warmth and light of spring approached..., I created the flowers and butterflies which represent growth, hope and transformation." "I was inspired by Carl Jung's theory of 'the gold in the shadow': his belief that what consciousness rejects is often the stuff of life that may give it its highest value. 'One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light but by making the darkness conscious' - Jung. I wanted to transform the skull (an object that is generally regarded as morbid and creepy) into a thing of beauty." I use a mix of life and death in my skull artwork, so I can definitely related to how she views her creation. To see what else Rebekah is creating, check out her Blog, and Facebook page.

A look at the other side of the skull.

Cuddly Skull

Mark Taylor's 9 year old daughter Hollee-Ann, from Luton, UK, made him this cuddly skull. He explained that she made it out of a bag of felt/fleece fabric, hand stitched it, and stuffed it with cotton wool.

I love seeing what kids create more than adults, because their vision and use of materials is so open and creative. My daughter also made a stuffed skull recently, so when I saw this, I instantly smiled. Sewing projects like these remind me of when I 1st started sewing as a young kid, but I never made anything as cool as a stuffed skull.

Dia de la Abby: #81 Skull Baby Quilt

This quilt, like the Skull Baby Toy that my daughter made, is for Noah and his wife's soon to be born baby.

Ever since I made this Free-form Embroidery Skull, I've been enjoying playing with this technique whenever it fits the project. This is the largest baby quilt that I've made. If you are familiar with my artwork, you might recognize this type of image...a skull with many flowers. It's Dia de los Muertos inspired. Since the gender of the baby won't be revealed until it's born, I tried to tone down the design. Though this quilt is for the blanket, Noah immediately said he might use it more. For scale of the quilt, Noah is holding it up in the photo. It's about a yard of fabric. It's backed with this Dia de los Muertos printed fabric by Alexander Henry. This quilt took about 12 hrs to make. Well worth the time. I'm looking forward to meet the little baby the quilt is for.

On Thursdays in the 6.0 year, I will post my own Dia de la Abby creations. On Thursdays in the 4.0 and 5.0 years, I posted my Dia de la Abby creations and occasionally tutorials with instructions on how I made my pieces. Hopefully you feel inspired by my posts just as I was by Noah's Skull-A-Day 1.0 daily project. Want to find me elsewhere, follow me on Facebook, my Blog, Google+ and/or Twitter.

Skull Baby Toy

This skull toy is a gift made for a special baby by Alex Davis. You might recognize who is holding it, as Noah Scalin.

You may or may not know, that Noah and his wife are expecting a baby in a few months. Of course that means that the baby gets gifts that their parents would like too. While I was busy making something (which you will see later today), my daughter was busy making a skull toy for the baby. This was totally her idea. She wanted to contribute to the baby gifts. She raided my fleece fabric stash (which exists to make baby gifts) to make the toy. She made the pattern, cut everything out, and stitched the face on. For baby safety, I stitched around the perimeter of the skull with my sewing machine, stuffed it, and closed it. I also re-enforced Alex's stitching on the teeth. She loves making toys and this is her best one yet.

Have you made an awesome piece of skull art? If so, submit it to us! We love see what you all create, and might post it on our website. Details on what we need for a submission can be found here. 

Stitched Sweater Skull

Holly Hann created a sugar skull applique for her best friend's cardigan sweater. This was her first and only attempt at embroidery.

For a first time doing embroidery, this is very nice. I like her use of some basic embroidery stitches to create an intricate design. Holly's best friend is a lucky person to have such an awesome hand made applique to adorn their cardigan. Hopefully, this isn't Holly's last attempt at embroidery. It's a tedious craft, but the results are worth the hours of work.

[Flashback Friday] 5.48 - Sewing Machine Embroidery Skulls

Welcome to another addition of Flashback Friday.** This year the guest editors, Tatman, Citizen Agent, and myself, Azurafae are taking turns reflecting on 17 of our personal favorite skulls from the previous four years of postings. So please join us as we visit the archives and add our additional commentary on some of the original pieces.

Dia de la Abby #25 - Free-form Embroidery Skull

I wanted to play with a free motion embroidery sewing machine foot for years. My involvement in the Skull-A-Day project gave me a great excuse to purchase the special sewing machine foot and use it to make a skull. As you all know, I love Dia de los Muertos, so I created a simple style sugar skull with accompanying stylized marigolds. I've been machine sewing since I was 12, so the majority of the sewing, though free motion, wasn't terribly difficult. Sewing the details on the skull was more challenging, but sewing slowly gave me a lot of control.

Dia de la Abby #46: Floral Skull Quilt Square

When it came around time for me to make my quilt square for the Skull-A-Day and Becky's Fund Quilt Project, I used a combination of the new free motion embroidery skill I had learned, and older embroidery and beading skills that I'd been building on since I was 4 years old. Since the machine embroidery was over a piece of fabric, after sewing, I stiffened the fabric and sealed the fraying edges with clear acrylic paint. This is one of my favorite embroidery pieces to create, since it combines a variety of techniques of a skill I'm proud to do.

317. Sewn Skull

I was aware that Noah had created this skull using a sewing machine. I asked him one day if he did it with the same type of foot that I had used. He hadn't. He used the standard sewing machine foot and forced the fabric through the feed dogs. If you aren't familiar with what "feed dogs" are, they are the metal ridges that help feed the fabric through the sewing area of a sewing machine, by gripping onto the fabric pressed against the sewing foot. This makes drastically changing the straight direction of the fabric while sewing, difficult. Looking at Noah's piece again, I notice the almost etch-a-sketch feel to it, since the sewing was done by pulling the fabric in a non-straight direction while sewing, and using the backwards button to form long zig zag stitches. This is very difficult to do, so I commend him on being able to do this and creating a successful image of a skull. When doing embroidery with the specialty foot, the feed dogs are down, so there is no traction while sewing and you can freely sew without an encouraged direction.

 **Flashback Friday was a weekly countdown of the fan selected top 52 skulls of Skull-A-Day 1.0. Each week during year 3.0 The Skullmaster posted the original skull along with some additional commentary in order from lowest to highest rated, with the #1 skull appearing in the last week of year 3.0, all 52 can be found here. During year 4.0 the editors had their chance to countdown their favorites Azurafae HERE, Citizen Agent HERE, and Tatman HERE.