Happy Cinco de Mayo

Today is Cinco de Mayo (May 5th) and is a celebration with parties and food in many Latin American countries. I remember many of my Mexican friends and school chums in California having fun with this day. I've shared some free patterns in the past that I designed to commemorate this with some holiday specific fabrics. (you'll find the link at the bottom of this post)

Fiesta collection: Do you remember my Sugar Skulls? These fabrics are probably still current in your local quilt shop. Click the link under the photo to see my steps again.

Fiesta Sugar Skull Dresdens

I had made one of my Pentagon Wreath blocks using another fussy cut Sugar Skull. Here I am ready to appliqué it to an 11" background square (yes, it will finish to 10-1/2"). I pulled 4 light colored Bedrock fabrics for the background squares, and this is a very pale light blue (hard to tell in the photo). I'm ready to machine stitch it down using my Bernina 1230 and a simple, short zigzag stitch.

Blue Pentagon Wreath block with gray Sugar Skull in center

And I'm ready to get the pink one put together. One fussy cut 2" hexagon and six 2" pink pentagons. The background square is a pale lavender (I used up my light pink in another project).

Beautiful, happy Sugar Skull with her 6 pink pentagons

Let's see the back of these pentagons. Yes, I punch a hole in the center so I can easily remove the papers. And, yes, I do NOT stitch through the papers; I just capture the fabric at the corner folds. This way when the papers are removed, my fabric doesn't flop all over the place.

And here is how they will look once I start stitching them together. Don't you just love all this pink?

Here is the prep for the green ones. Notice how I made a freezer paper window template to make sure I captured the exact image I wanted:

6 green pentagons and window template for the center hexagon Sugar Skull

And the 4th wreath will be yellow. Here are the fabrics I chose. The darker yellow is from Windham's Pop Dots. The background is Bedrock.

Yellow parts for the Pentagon Wreath (before cutting)

I put the four blocks together in a rectangular arrangement which I've used many times. This measures about 31" x 31". What do you think?

Cinco de Mayo Sugar Skulls quilt top

I even fussy cut two sugar skulls to make some of my Coffee Mug Rugs. Cute, huh?

Fiesta Sugar Skulls in mug rugs

Here's a FREE pattern from a few years ago. It is still up on the Windham web site:

South of the Border (by Windham) uses some fun blocks I designed. How about that cactus?!! If you click that link you will find this pattern PLUS two others - FREE!

South of the Border

Well, that's it for Cinco de Mayo 2021. I hope to finish these 4 Pentagon Wreath blocks and figure out some way to incorporate them with that Dresden Plate variation above. Have a wonderful day - Olé!