I often get crazy ideas and I have learned to live with that but some are just left field.  LOL.  I can not make a quilt without a pattern or wasting tons of fabric trying to figure it out.  That being said, I don’t know why, but I entered a quilt challenge to design a quilt.  I know, I’m nuts.

The theme of the challenge was playing cards.  Each person (at the shuffle of the deck) was assigned a playing card.   Your quilt didn’t need to look like a playing card.  It didn’t have to pertain to that card in any way except your idea or thoughts about the card.  The only stipulation was, it had to include a 4 patch posey, octagon or hexagon block in the quilt.   The main challenge said “think outside the box”.  I think I went so far outside the box that I gave the box away.

My card was the queen of clubs.  My brain immediately thought – a queen or princess playing golf.  No too easy.  Then I thought a fabric with clubs on it and applique a queen figure on it.  Nah.    So as I sat looking at  the card on the computer my brain said, queen?  Hmmm drag queen.  And so was born Frankie.

After all.  Who was the original drag queen? Who was the most infamous drag queen?  Ru Paul?  Julie Numeyer?  No, we all know Franknfurter on Rocky Horror Picture Show is the original, the epitome of drag queens.

So how would this work?  Most quilters are older so would they recognize who he was?  Could I find the perfect Rocky fabric? Well the search was on.  Something that had just Franknfurter on it, not the other cast members.  Something that even if you didn’t know who he was, you knew he was a drag queen.   Something more like a tribute than a joke that wouldn’t offend the LGBT community.  Yes I really don’t like offending people in general.

After weeks of searching, my daughter found the perfect black t-shirt.  Not only does it show just him in his drag costume but it had a gay pride flag.  That would help with people that never saw the movie.  But we ordered and the shirt never came.  3 weeks and back to search for another shirt because this was my only game plan.   After a bit of looking, she stumbled across the same shirt offered in white.  Ok it will do although I would prefer the black.  The day after it arrived, you guessed it.  The black one showed up.  This changed my whole idea for the design.  Now I had 2 options.  Well, if you have 2, use 2.

That resulted in a way to use Franknfurter and the gay pride flag without making this into a gay pride design.  So was born my design.  I left a small part of each flag because like I said, there may actually be people that haven’t seen the movie and would get the drag queen idea and I used both t-shirts.  I placed them back to back and added a border so it resembled a playing card.  Originally I was just going to do a black border by my daughter said use stripes or checks,.  Well what do they wave at a “drag” race?  You got it, a checkered flag.  The outer border adds in my card suit with yellow clubs and the red is my required 4 patch posey blocks.   So, here it is in all it’s glory my Queen of Clubs.

I’ve agreed to sell the quilt and I hope the person getting it appreciates the design.  I just kind of made it as a fluke but the more I look at it the more I appreciate the overall thought.