You’ve spent a lot of time finding, trading and collecting Fiesta Medals. So why would you just pin them haphazardly on a sash. This is a guide on how to pin Fiesta Medals on a Fiesta Sash so that your medals shine! But first, I want to give a huge shoutout to medal maniac James Valdez who gave me some help a couple of years ago. In case you don’t know, the sash that James wears is *always* on point—it is super clean and you can see all the medals perfectly. So while I can only aspire to have a sash like the one James has, I have to say that my sash game has dramatically improved since pre-2017.
And if you happen to need a high quality Fiesta Sash, be sure to check out the super strong, reversible SA Flavor Fiesta Sash in our online store (it’s also at the Fiesta Store on Broadway, Maddie Mac Boutique on Vance Jackson and Karolina’s Antiques on Blanco). It features a serape pattern with “Fiesta” embroidered on one side and a chicken on a stick print on the other. AND it comes with an exclusive Texas Serape 2019 medal! But without further adieu, here are some fiesta medal sash best practices that I’ve learned over the years.
1. Pin Fiesta Medals at an Angle on Your Sash
This is probably the most rookie mistake we all make—we get our sash and then start pinning straight in a row. How many of y’all have done something like this:
The problem is that for Fiesta Sashes that you wear cross body, there is an angle that you have to account for. By have the medals in this straight row, they are going to begin hanging kind of weird and pulling on the ribbon (NOTE: this doesn’t apply if you’re wearing one of the “stoll” kind of sashes—feel free to pin straight across).
You have to use gravity as a friend, not a foe, and actually angle your medals just a bit. It should look like this:
Now when you wear your sash, the top of the ribbon should be almost parallel to the ground. Doing this removes that awkward torque on the ribbon when the medal is pulled down by gravity. When the medals are roughly the same size you want the “top points” of the ribbon to all be on a straight line that is perpendicular to the side of your sash. Check out the below photo—obviously I could stand to be more accurate!
Please note that the orientation of the angle on the back of the sash is a mirror image of the front—it should look a little like the photo below. Again, you want to line up the “peaks” of the ribbon:
2. Place Ribbons Under the Fiesta Medals in the Above Rows
This rule is probably more apt to those maniacs who have a TON of Fiesta Medals—you’ll lose a lot of room on your Fiesta Sash if you don’t start pinning your next row under the previous one.
Remember to keep that angle so that they hang well. If the medals you’re pinning on the next row are roughly the same size AND the medals above are roughly the same size, you still want those “peaks” of the ribbon to line up horizontally.
Remember, when you put on the Fiesta Sash, the Fiesta Medals are going to dangle to the “left” because of gravity which will make them look staggered and cool.
3. With Different Sized Medals Adjust Vertical Placement of the Pin, But Keep the Angle
Now it starts getting tricky because there are so many different shapes and sizes of Fiesta Medals. When you have a row of varied medals it will not make sense to have the “peaks” lined up because the smaller medals might be obscured. In this event, feel free to mess around with the placement.
My personal preference is to typically adjust so that the “bottoms” of the medals on the new row kind of line up.
4. Balance Your Sash Front and Back
Unless you want to be tugging on your sash throughout the entirety of Fiesta, it is massively important that it is balanced on the front and the back. Think about all the weight on the front if you were to fill it entirely up but left nothing on the back—that sash is going to be pulling down like it was magnetized to the ground!
While you can most certainly get around this by “pinning” your sash to your clothes, I think that it is still a pretty annoying feeling—especially for prolonged times. Balancing is the way to go. I’d rather have half my sash filled out in the front and have on the back and be comfortable!
5. Use Safety Pins to Double Protect Your Favorite Medals!!!!
If you have a favorite medal, the last think you want it to do is to come undone while you’re doing the chicken dance in the German Hall! This is especially important for medals that don’t have the high quality chicken foot clasp that I advise everyone get in my Fiesta Medal Guide.
And for the love of Maria’s Tortillas take a little extra time to double pin down your absolute favorites (maybe a Rey Feo, David Durbin or one of our SA Flavor Fiesta Medals),regardless of the clasp! Go through the ribbon with one safety pin and through the eye of the medal that adheres to the ribbon in case the ribbon were to break!
6. Get a High Quality Fiesta Sash
While this last point might seem like a plug, it’s more of the truth. A poorly made Fiesta Sash will give you all sorts of troubles—it will pull, tug and you’ll lose some medals. Instead, get a solid sash to showoff your medals. There are a lot of great places in town to get a sash, but we’re a little partial to the SA Flavor Fiesta Sash we made in 2019.
A bright serape pattern is backed by a super strong cotton polyester twill fabric with our SA Flavor chicken on a stick pattern. And a big bonus is that it comes with an exclusive Texas Serape Fiesta Medal for 2019! This is one sturdy sash that we made because we got frustrated by some of the products in the market. Check it our SA Flavor Fiesta Sash in our online store now! ¡VIVA!
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