Finally Finished--The Tattoo Quilt!

Even I still can't believe it's done, and it's been almost a year since it was completed.

Patti, my former supervisor, is also my friend. Before she was my supervisor, she was a co-worker in our agency and we made each other laugh a lot--that was a necessary skill set. She finally made the decision to retire and did so mid-2025. We worked together for over 20 years and propped each other up through the years.  

Patti packing up her office, and unpacking the quilt

That's MaryBeth holding it up so Patti could see everything on the front

And showing it to another co-worker...

While I have already blogged about making Blocks 1 through 5, I haven't yet shared the experience of piecing the rest of the quilt. I think I will during down times, and I'll treat it as a sort of retrospective (think "what I did vs. what I could have done and may do in the future").  I may tell you more than you want to know, and you can scroll right past those parts. But let's get on with the finished quilt:

I started the quilt in early February 2024, and in January 2025 it became a flimsy. All of December 2024, my first month of retirement, was spent tearing off all of the foundation paper while I sat in my recliner decompressing with my puppies. I originally wanted to add a border like the one Tula Pink pieced onto her quilt because the stripes reminded me of a circus big top, and the name of the quilt is “Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys”—I thought it would perfectly bring home the idea behind the name—but after sashing the blocks and center panel and consulting with Katrina and Cindy, I ditched the border and instead used the border fabrics to make the binding.

The backing is NSFW —below you'll see an image from it. The art is the work of Cynthia Frenette, a graphics artist that I adore, and her artwork is available for print-on-demand at Spoonflower. In fact, some of her designs are called “Yard of Swears” and I purchased several of those to piece together as the backing. 

I spent the first weekend in April 2025 with Katrina and we spent most of two days quilting the quilt on her longarm. I did all of the background fill (doodles) and she did 99% of the ruler work. 

I brought the binding with me because Katrina wanted to attach it while the quilt was still on the longarm. We watched a video from Angie's Answers, and Katrina stitched it on. Talk about a timesaver! I will forever be grateful to Katrina for allowing me the opportunity to use her longarm (the former Tonka Toy, re-christened Mosheen by Katrina, and now living with its third owner) to get the quilt finished. 

I gave the quilt to Patti on her final day in the office. She cried and laughed a lot while looking at all of the different sentiments (ahem) on the back. In the card I gave her, I included a letter and talked about quotes that reminded me of her, and that they were quilted throughout the quilt—the letter included the names of those whose quotes are in the quilt. I hope she has had fun looking for them.

The label: I agonized over this one, but I took a design from Urban Threads and added lettering to complete the label. Y'all, it's huge; so huge that I couldn't place it where I typically place a label, and it's about 10" by 15". The first stitch-out was terrible, but I figured out what I did wrong the first time and the second stitch-out was fabulous. The quilt name mentioned above is incomplete; the full name of the quilt is "Not My Circus, Not My Monkeys, a/k/a The What-The-F!ck Quilt." Yes, I know that some of you may be clutching your pearls over it, but it represents the daily conversations that too often started with the phrase, "What the f!ck?" And now you know why the back of the quilt has all of those lovely sentiments. 

Yes, there are puckers, but they'll wash out...

I was able to go to Patti's home earlier this week for a delightful lunch and to finally take the quilt's glamour shots. Maybe I should have taken the photos before we sat down to eat and talk and talk and talk, but I'm still happy with how they turned out. The quilt still makes me smile, and that's saying something.

This is Patti's cat, Little, and he lives on the quilt in the spare bedroom

The question now is will I make this quilt again? If you followed the previous posts about the quilt, you know that I experimented with a Brother ScanNCut to cut out the fabric. After watching an untold number of YouTube videos on cutting fabric with ScanNCut, ideas popped in my head to not only cut the fabrics on the cutter, but to also cut the paper pattern so that this could be pieced in a traditional-ish method. I hope to test this on a block before determining if I will use it and if I will make the entire quilt again. I have a lot of Alison Glass fabric waiting in one of The Bins and if I don't use it to make this quilt, I need to find a pattern that will do that fabric justice.

I'm just so happy this quilt is DONE and no longer taking up valuable space in my studios. The fact that I worked on no other project while working on this quilt was a test of my patience on so many levels. And here I am adding Quiltworx patterns to my bucket list and wondering if I'll get them all done in my lifetime. 

I hope you are happily working on something you love. I am working on my digitizing homework that must be submitted tomorrow--once that's done, I'm back to the final block of Antelope Canyon. In the meantime, go make!