Quilts (and free patterns) for Dia de los Muertos!

Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) is celebrated on October 31st, November 1st and 2nd. The tradition honors those who have passed, whose souls are thought to come back to be with their loved ones. The Day of the Dead is becoming very popular in the U.S. Its themes overlap with Halloween - including skeletons and skulls.

Please check out our eBay shop for great bargains on quilt patterns, jewelry and collectibles! 

For FREE PATTERNS for Dia de los Muertos, please see our *updated* Free Pattern Day (CLICK HERE): 

Here are some inspiring, original Dia de los Muertos quilts which we've enjoyed at quilt shows. 

Beauty Parlor de los Muertos, 76 x 59", by Nancy Arsenault

Beauty Parlor de los Muertos, which was exhibited at the 2014 AQS - Phoenix show, is another fabulous realistic afterlife quilt by Nancy Arsenault.  The skeletons are engaged in typical beauty parlor activities while under the hair dryer. The woman on the far right is reading a Quilters Newsletter magazine! Nancy says, "This salon scene was inspired by personal experience.  Does it look familiar to you too?"

This good-looking hairdresser is wearing a real white shirt, a tooled vest, and bola tie... in the shape of a skull, of course! Our favorite character is the fluffy white poodle shown below... he is all bones!

Nancy Arsenault is an award-winning Arizona quiltmaker who made the first of her series of Dia de los Muertos quilts in 2006. For more quilt inspiration, visit Pinterest and check out Nancy's AZquiltmaker board, Quilts I've Made.

Dia de los Muertos, 39 x 43", by Alice Morgan

In the tradition of Mexican folk art, this quilt is bright and colorful!  The blanket-stitched appliqued skulls are set at a jaunty angle and they have button eyes.  Alice used a broderie perse approach to embellish the blocks with big, colorful flowers. Alice Morgan says, "Don't these skulls make you smile?"

This is an adaptation of a commercial pattern but with lots of embellishments. Alice Morgan's was photographed at the 2012 River City Quilters Guild show in California; the original design by Jane Tenorio-Coscarelli is shown below.

Dia de los Muertos, approx 12 x 12", by Rebecca Navarro (Texas)

Rebecca Navarro says, “The Day of the Dead is a time to remember those who have died. The deceased are honored with food, beverages, and flowers."  Rebecca’s original design  was machine pieced, inked, and free-motion quilted. The quilt was embellished with scattered seed beads.

As you can see in the close-up photo above, the flower centers were decorated with tiny skulls. Rebecca Navarro's quilt was exhibited in the miniature quilts exhibit at the 2013 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Jose Guadalupe Posada's Door, 18 x 24", by Cathy Hawthorne (Arizona)

Jose Guadalupe Posada's Door was part of the Mavericks Art Quilters 2013 Door Challenge. The participating artists were challenged to design an 18" x 24" quilt showing the back door that an artist of their choice might have had on their house. This quilt honors the Mexican artist, José Guadalupe Posada (1851–1913) who was renowned for his drawings of calaveras (skulls).

As shown above, Cathy appliqued many fabric skulls on the quilt using broderie perse, and hung a small skeleton holding a mesh bag of skulls.

My Idea of Heaven, 41 x 53", by Janet Windsor

My Idea of Heaven is one of our favorite Day of the Dead quilts.  Janet Windsor explains: "I love the Dia de los Muertos holiday in Mexico.  I cannot imagine a happier place to end up than at my sewing machine. So I borrowed an illustrator friend’s skeleton and took photos of it sitting at a featherweight sewing machine. I did a drawing from those photos which I then fused, appliqued, and embellished with buttons, beads, ribbons, silk flowers, and milagros."  We  featured Janet Windsors' work in a post published in October, 2012.

Life Everlasting by Ann Horton

Ann Horton says, "In the tradition of The Day of the Dead celebrations, this quilt embraces life after death with happy assurance. [It was] inspired by my 89-year-old mother's faith and life."  The dancing skulls were created with digitized machine embroidery.  We first featured Life Everlasting in our post on the 2013 Houston International Quilt Festival.

Image credits: All images are copyrighted by their owners. The photo of My Idea of Heaven is shown with permission of Janet Windsor; for her gallery, see her website at Janet Windsor.com.  All other quilt show photos were taken by Quilt Inspiration.  For the free patterns and tutorials, please respect any restrictions the artists have placed on the use of their designs; complete information can be found at the websites provided in the links.  If any links are broken, we'd love to know; please email us at quiltinspiration {at} gmail {dot} com. 

My Idea of Heaven

In Mexico, and increasingly in the U.S., the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos) is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd. The holiday is time of celebration, when the souls of those who have passed come back to drink, eat and be merry with their loved ones. For us, it is also an occasion to enjoy the creative vision of artists who have incorporated icons such as skeletons, sugar skulls and papel picado into works of art.  We particularly love "My Idea of Heaven" by Janet Windsor. Her quilt won a blue ribbon for Best Use of Embellishment at PIQF XVIII.

My Idea of Heaven, 41 x 53", by Janet Windsor as seen at Flickr.  Pieced, appliqued and beaded cotton and silk

Janet Windsor's description card reads:  "At the end of my journey this is what I hope for… an eternity spent sewing and creating”.  She explains: "I love the Dia de los Muertos holiday in Mexico. I love the sentiment and the iconography. I cannot imagine a happier place to end up than at my sewing machine. So I borrowed an illustrator friend’s skeleton and took photos of it sitting at a featherweight sewing machine. I did a drawing from those photos which I then fused, appliqued, drew and painted on and heavily embellished with buttons, beads, ribbons, silk flowers, and milagros." 

Petal Fall, 2 x (16 x 48 x 2"), a diptych by Janet Windsor as seen at Flickr. Pieced silk and cotton stretched on frame.

The majority of Janet's quilts are abstract pieces, including the luminous "Petal Fall" shown above. She says:  "In my abstract work I always begin with photographs. I comb through them looking for colors and color combinations. The subject of the photos is not necessarily what the piece will be about. Sometimes it is just about color, although most of the time I look for photos which present the images I’m hoping to convey. Petal Fall is a depiction of the softness of the petals as they pile up on the hard ground beneath the tree. It is composed of commercial silks and cottons, and cotton and silk which I hand dye. It is machine pieced and quilted and stretched on a wooden frame."

Autumn, Sonoma County, 78 x 32", by Janet Windsor as seen at Studio Art Quilt Associates

"Autumn, Sonoma County" brings to mind the vineyards in Sonoma County, which are alive with color in the fall.  We love the vibrant russets, golds, fuchsia and olive green hues, which are capped by the cerulean blue of the sky. This piece was selected by Studio Art Quilt Associates for the Seasonal Palette exhibit, which is premiering this week at the International Quilt Festival in Houston, November 1-4, 2012. For the exhibit, the curators selected 37 artists from a field of 144 entries. After Houston, the exhibit will travel to the International Quilt Festivals in Long Beach and Cincinnati.

Image credits:  Images are shown with the generous permission of Janet Windsor, who resides in Tucson, Arizona. She graduated from Scripps College in Claremont, California with a degree in painting & weaving. She had a long career as a graphic designer in Cincinnati. Janet has been sewing since she was twelve; she has combined her graphic design skills with stitching in her pieces. To see more quilts by Janet Windsor, visit her photo stream at jwindsoh at Flickr. For more information, contact Janet Windsor by email at jwindsor312@gmail.com