Sometimes the best-laid plans...

Upon returning from the San Francisco Tattoo and Body Expo, I promptly became horrible sick with bronchitis. After dealing with this illness for several weeks now, I finally feel like I'm on the mend. But because being sick made me so horribly weak, I've been unable to do anything, let alone finish my quilt for the upcoming The Art of Tattoo Art Show!

So last night, I pulled an all-nighter at my Mom's house so that I could get my quilt finished in time for tonight's art show opening reception. Initially, I had planned on doing a double nine patch block of the purple and yellow fabrics to surround the tattoo girl focal piece. Well, I just plain ran out of time.

After becoming frustrated with this quilt and wanting to scrap the entire idea, my Mom calmly started laying out my completed blocks to see what we had to work with. I really had my heart set on including the red fabric.




My Mom had the lovely black with swirls fabric in her stash, so we incorporated that next to the red fabric. The black polka dots fabric is actually the backing of the quilt and will also be used as the binding. I included it in the front of the quilt to help balance the many colors. When the front of the quilt was completely sewn together, I started pinning it to the batting and the backing.




I used a variegated thread and free-hand motion to outline each of the tattoo girls in the focal piece. Each of the nine patch blocks are also quilted with the same variegated thread. I then brought the polka dot fabric backing to the edges to create the binding.




Here's the final product! What do you think? It's not at all what I had envisioned when I had started the piece some time ago. But when does art ever follow a master plan!



I've named this art quilt "Girl's Night Out." It will be available tonight at Side Show Studios.