Tattoos - Lisa Scarfe - "Bride"

My quilt for the Tattoos theme depicts a henna tattoo. Dyeing and tattooing using plant based dyes such as henna is an ancient

craft from numerous cultures including Indian, Arabic, Middle Eastern and Northern African, to name a few. My quilt is my interpretation of a bride with her henna tattoo. I was trying to do something different to a normal skin tattoo.

I used a silk/viscose fabric for the hand, raw Thai silk for the background, a tulle/blingy fabric for the cuff and quilting cotton for the nails and also underneath the tulle. I used a DMC metallic thread for the tattoo embroidery and a metallic braid for the edge. I used monofilament or invisible thread for everything else.

Technically this was a challenging task, partly because of the challenges with the different materials I used.

I made a very basic error when drawing up the henna tattoo with a Sewline pencil - I found the lines wouldn't erase as I had assumed they would. I tried a few things including the Sewline eraser which didn't work. Bleach was highly unsuccessful - the fabric disappeared!! Eventually a Sewline liquid eraser got most of it out, though in some light you can see where this has been, despite being thoroughly rinsed out. Lesson definitely learnt here!

I had to block the hand as it dried as the silk/viscose fabric curled up easily and I really didn't trust the iron on this fabric or the thread.

The stitching was done with a DMC metallic thread. It was such a pain to use I will definitely not ever use it again. Maybe it was the type of fabric I chose....never say never!

I love this blingy/tulle fabric. 

I must admit I do wonder if this quilt is finished. I have certainly broken the rule about not having large spaces unstitched. Many ideas of what to put in these spaces have crossed my mind (gold paisley shapes?) but I really am not sure what to do, or if doing anything will take away from the embroidery and the blingy/tulle. Also, the Thai silk red background fabric is gorgeous, so I am not sure if I want to do something that might detract from this.