Who's Quilt is That??

Do you make a label for each quilt that you finish?


And What do you put on the label? And how do you make the label?
Well, on the third question, I can offer a couple of suggestions to really SPIFF up the label.
Most Labels that I see are square and hand sewn on the back of the quilt. A few years back my friend Doris, who doesn't particularly like to hand sew -- but she does anyway... Came up with the idea of the triangle Quilt Label. The triangle Quilt Label means you only have to hand sew along one edge.
This is how we do it.Depending on how big of a label you need, cut a square between 6 inches to about 8 inches square. Fold over the square to make a triangle with a already "hemmed edge"

Next, SPIFF it UP. I (and Doris too, who does this part mostly freehand -- she is a good draw-er) like to include a motif of some sort on the label to grab your eye. Most of my motif's come from old iron on embroidery designs that I have collected over the years. The little design then is coloured -- thats my short cut anyway -- or you could actually embroider it!

I use coloured pencils, or sometimes regular wax crayons, or just as often pigma pens -- all need to be heat set with your iron.

So now you have a really nice label, I just write on it a date, and who made it or who it is for. This particular label is for the quilt that I finished up this morning and will be donated to my guild's charitable quilts program. I don't usually put my name on it, but the person in charge of the donated quilts has a numbering system so she can keep track of who made what quilt. Often the recipient of a quilt will write a thank-you letter to the guild and then it will be passed along to the quilt maker...

So, I made a little quilt, well, a nice lap size type of quilt -- 3 1/2 inch squares made into four-patch blocks and then the four patch blocks alternated with 6 1/2 squares. 

(and made an error in placement of the blocks, which I didn't notice until I started quilting down the middle of the light smaller squares!  Oh! Darn! )

Quick, Simple, Uses Up lots of SCRAPS....

Now, squint your eyes a bit - the next picture shows the backing and the label, I just described how to make -- the back is awfully bright!

Whew!  Can you believe that for a backing?!  Aw, Well it is flannelette and is warm and cosy.  And there you see how the label is attached to the quilt. 

 You simply match it to one one your corners -- on this quilt which corner doesn't matter, but on a directional quilt, you might want to think about which corner you want the label on. 

Align the label with the edge of the quilt and pin into place, after you have sewn the front side of your binding on the quilt. 

While you either hand or machine stitch your binding around the back, sew the binding onto the label but also make sure that you catch the backing underneath.  Once you have finished sewing your binding on, just go back to the label and tack down either with a hand stitch or a machine along that angle edge.  There.

You Are Done.

Remember, do the drawing and writing and heat setting on the label BEFORE you attach it to the quilt, because if you use a poly batting the heat will flatten the batting...  If you forget to heat set, it will not affect a cotton or wool batting like it will a poly...