My Wicked Quilt: Bona Lisa

I am participating in the Something Wicked blog hop and now it's time for my blog hop day.  

I've been seeing a lot of beautiful Halloween patterns lately, and since Joan and Carol have been so accommodating and kind in hosting this blog hop, I decided to use one of their patterns. They both have provided so many Halloween patterns that it is difficult to choose, but a lot of them are on another hard drive, so it was pretty easy to choose.

I chose the center panel of the block of the month, Bona Lisa. The pattern is by Joan Kawano and the pattern is called Bona Lisa's Sweater Emporium 2024 BOM.  This is the pattern for the center of the quilt, and the remaining blocks are supposed to surround the center panel, but I decided to keep it simple and make this one block. 

I had thought about adding a house in the background, to go with my last Halloween quilt, but my fabric wasn't wide enough.  

I put together the headstone first, securing the fusible applique with some stitches. I chose a different fabric for the yarn at first, but I kept seeing this scrap of fabric from the Tropical Fish quilt and it looks more like yarn to me, so I switched it out.

The green is the backing fabric and will be trimmed away before I bind it.

Then I put together the skeleton and decided to combine the stitching to secure the applique with the quilting. I didn't use the layout in the pattern and didn't overlap the bones nearly as much as the pattern does.  I used the rejected yarn fabric for the mouth, though I realize my Lisa is going to have peach lipstick all over her teeth!  

I thought about adding more blocks around this panel, but I decided to stop here.  I have so many quilts that I need to finish that I wanted to get this one finished, which means the panel is enough by itself.  

The size of it is perfect for a door banner, and if I put it on the coat closet which is right by the front door, I think it makes a nice welcome for the season.

I need to do some more quilting on it, to secure the background with dark thread, to add the teeth, but since it gets dark early, I decided I could finish it tomorrow instead of rushing to get it done. I like to enjoy the process, and I am really enjoying making this quilt.

I also thought about adding extras like a bat or pumpkins or spider, but for some reason, this quilt is really satisfying the way it is, and I don't feel the need to add anything else.  See, I can stop when I want. I'm not addicted to quilting.

I'll show you the finished quilt soon.  

Be sure to check out the other participants in the blog hop this week. I gave you the list in my last post.