My Quilting Tattoo

Eleven years ago, Paul and I got matching tattoos to celebrate our 15th anniversary. Up until deciding to do that, rather spur of the moment, I had never even considered getting a tattoo. When we went in, the tattoo artist asked which of us was going first and I said I would, because I was worried that if it looked like it hurt a lot I would chicken out! 

Sometime after that, maybe a year or two later, I started thinking I'd like to have a quilting tattoo. For a while it was just a vague, maybe someday kind of thought. Then I started feeling more and more like I wanted to make it happen. Problem was, I couldn't decide what I wanted! There are so many great sewing tattoos out there! Vintage sewing machines, quilt blocks, thread spools, needle and thread, scissors... On and on the choices go, and I couldn't settle on anything. I love the idea of a vintage sewing machine, but I don't sew on one, and, while I love my Janome 6700, it's not really tattoo material. I spent years collecting ideas on Pinterest, but that was as far as it went.

My other hold-up was I didn't know who to have do it. The guy who did our tattoos in 2014 had moved away, so I couldn't go back to him. Then a friend had a full sleeve of tattoos done and the work was gorgeous, so I asked her for the recommendation.

Back in June I took the plunge and reached out to her tattoo artist, Lawrence, and booked an appointment for September 30. When he asked what I wanted, I sent him a whole Drive folder full of inspiration and ideas, hoping he could turn it into something coherent. The only things I knew for sure were that it would be on my right forearm and I wanted a line of hexies that wrapped around my arm. I loved the shape of this vine tattoo, so I sent that along with a picture of some hexies lined up on a table.

Beyond that, I told him 'maybe include a needle and thread, or a spool of thread, or a hexie flower' with pictures of all the options so he would know what I meant. He said we'd meet before my appointment to go over what I wanted, and then I settled in to wait for the end of September.

The week before my appointment, I emailed him to check in, and he said, "I just finished reviewing your ideas..all good….we don’t need to meet for this…I’ll have this stuff put together for ya for Tuesday." What??? I wanted to see what he was making out of the mess of ideas I had sent, lol. Waiting those last couple of days was tough!

When I arrived on Tuesday, he had a bunch of drawings printed out and we sat down to build the plan. He had a couple of options for the line of hexies, bigger and smaller, connected or not. I chose the smaller hexies and connected, so it looked like they were sewn together. Once I could see how much space the hexies would take up on my arm, I opted to skip the spool of thread and the hexie flower, going with just a needle and thread.

He started with the line of hexies, wrapping them from just above my wrist to my elbow. Tattoos are done with a transfer of some sort that puts the lines on the skin so the tattoo artist can follow the lines with the ink. This picture shows the transfer, before he went over it with the ink.

Once the hexies were outlined, he added the transfer for the needle where we wanted it, then picked up a Sharpie and literally drew the path of the thread freehand. No wonder we didn't need to meet ahead of time! He wasn't satisfied with the first couple of tries, so he erased those with rubbing alcohol and tried again until he was satisfied. Once he was happy with how it covered the space around the hexies he sent me to look in a mirror to be sure I was happy with it, then inked it all. I asked if the thread could be blue (of course!), but he recommended sticking with black because the colour inks are a thicker consistency and aren't as good for thin lines. In this picture, the hexies are outlined, the needle is partially done, and you can see the Sharpie line for the thread.

Once the needle and thread were done, it was time to add the colour! I chose pink, purples, blues, and teal. He suggested having another warm colour, so we added yellow. It was so much fun to watch the hexies come to life as he worked his way up my arm! Filling in shapes is more painful than outlining is, though, so by the time he was getting to the end of the line I was definitely ready to be done.

The last thing he did was add a tiny bit of white to give the needle some shine, which I hadn't even considered, but is a great little detail.

When he was done and I could go to the mirror again, I couldn't stop twisting my arm around and grinning! I am thrilled with how it turned out!

The next afternoon I set up my phone and took a little video to show it off. You can see the video on Instagram. These pictures are taken from the video because I completely forgot to take pictures like this, so they're not the clearest, but they give you an idea how it looks when you're seeing all of me, not just closeups.

I did take closeup pictures after recording the video. The hexies look kind of textured, but that's just because it was fresh and the skin needs to heal. They'll look smooth once the healing is done. That can take weeks, though, and I'm too excited to wait that long to share it.

Seeing it makes me ridiculously happy. As a friend pointed out, that's a good thing, considering I'll be looking at it for a very long time 😆 

Someone else pointed out that a lot of people probably won't understand what it is, which is true, especially if they don't notice the needle. It's not the most obvious quilting reference, but I think quilters will recognize it, even if they've never done EPP themselves. Whether they do or not, I know what it is.

As we were driving home on Tuesday, Paul asked if I'd go back to Lawrence again. 

I said, "Yes, absolutely." 

"Are you planning to get more?" he asked. I just laughed. I have no plans for more tattoos, but I have heard they're addictive, so who knows? Haha!

Do you have a quilting tattoo? Or would you consider getting one?