This is the second of two blog posts featuring memorial quilts I made that honor two brothers, Salvador and Fernando. This post will showcase the quilt honoring Fernando that I made for his daughter, Monica. (Read my previous post for Salvador’s quilts)

As Monica shared with me, her father, Fernando, and his brother Salvador cherished family above all else, and together, they often loved to ride horses in the Mexican style of riding: The Churro Style. Both brothers always carried a bandana with them. It was considered necessary for raising their kids and grandkids as it always came in handy for any eventualities – a spilled ice cream, a bump, or a scratch in the park and often whenever someone needed to wipe off their tears.

But while Salvador usually wore more conservative colors like red, navy, and burgundy, Fernando preferred a brighter palette. Monica requested that I make her quilt from her father’s collection of brightly colored bandanas.

Because I needed to use every inch of each bandana for the quilt, we chose my Zadie quilt pattern which lends itself for lots of mixing and matching across the blocks.

It always strikes me how intentional I need to be to create a fully random design, making sure the same fabric is never adjacent to itself.

It involved lots of counting and rearranging.

Each block was like its own little vignette.

Monica’s other request was that I also include a shirt worn by her uncle Salvador. Once I had sewn up all the blocks, I chose a delightful polka dot shirt of Salvador’s to be the block borders and lattice structure.

The playfulness of the polka dots was a great compliment to the wild energy of the bandannas.

Here is the final quilt, followed by a detail. The gold border was the perfect color to enclose the colorful center, and I chose a paisley medley quilting pattern to top it all off.

What a delightful tribute to a man who was not afraid to fly his colors with abandon!