Thursday, January 5, 2017

Catching Up On Quilt Labels - Part 2

With a little focus earlier in the week for the first two and some help from the Patchwork Times Quilt-A-Thon today for the rest, I got five of the eight labels I needed done for my Labels Pledge.

Flying For Cover

Quilt
 Label(s)

The bottom label is a transcription of a speech called "Lessons From Geese" given by Angeles Arien at the 1991 Organizational Development Network that was based on the work of Milton Olson.  I had come across it when I was making the quilt and immediately wanted to incorporate it into the label.  You can see the same article quoted in a blog post of the Distracted Quilter from back in 2011 (and my comment on her post shows you how long I've waited to make this label!). 

Lincoln/Obama Embroidery Update

This quilt was labeled when originally made (bottom label).  I took some more of the original label fabric and sewed on the second label for the update.
Brrr!

Label 

The label for Brrr! was foundation paper-pieced using Freezer Paper.  It's so much less tedious than regular paper-piecing because there's no paper to tear away.  The design is drawn on the paper side of the freezer paper.   The wrong side of the first piece of fabric is ironed to the waxy side of the template.  Each subsequent piece is then layered right sides together to the previous piece and you stitch along side the folded back section of your design.




The best part is that when you are done and pull the template away from the fabric, it is reusable! 

I had picked out this design back when I finished making the quilt top.  It is  #10 - Square In A Square from a great book called "Foundation -Pieced Quilt Labels" by Linda Causee (ASN 2001).   It was nice to take a look back through the book and note that this is the third label I've made from it.  I also used labels from this book for:

Bits 'N Pieces (2008)

Label #21- Chevrons:



I added the little silk flowers to hide the lousy job I did of turning the corners on the label binding.  Definitely a "design decision"!!

Label #12 - Flower Basket on the Alex's Baskets quilt (2009):



Edited To Add:  If you have access to a library of Quilters Newsletter Magazine back issues, there are some more paper-pieced label designs in an article titled "Easy Pieced Labels" in the January/February 2006 issue.

Now, getting back to the current label work:

Vintage Treasures

Label

This quilt was partially made from kits from a 2004 Joann's BOM (that story started here).  They offered a preprinted blank label but I never got that kit and since I had substituted one of the fabrics used in it anyway, I decided to make a label with my fabrics but using the same square-in-a-square design.  

I printed the label information out onto fabric when I had finished the top thinking that I would quilt it up quickly.  Unfortunately, that didn't happen until a year later so while I still used the label I had originally printed up, I did write in the actual finish date on it now as well.  I also added some of the extra clamshells I had leftover from the binding around it.

All Spruced Up

This was one case where I needed to make a label because I had cut a small hole in the backing (where the pin is) when I had trimmed the seams of the backing pieces and wanted to cover it up to protect the quilt.



I had originally planned to do a more elaborate pieced or picture label.  However, in the interest of getting this done quickly, this turned out to be the easiest label I did.  I decided to just take a piece of one of the fabrics leftover from the quilt, write the label information onto it and sew it on.


The fabric is a little dark so it was hard to get a good picture of the writing but it's there!

Now back to the grind.  I'm still trying to get used to quilting on my old machine again so I can finish the pieced picture Cardinals label I talked about in Part 1.  There are only two more labels in addition to that one that I have finish to fulfill my pledge!

More Links For Label Ideas

Another good thing that came out of going through the label stuff I have is that I found some more interesting "links" that I had collected in the past about good label techniques.  When I find stuff on the web, I generally print it out and put it in books that I have that correspond to the information. 

So you can find out about doing a "Curved Bias Quilt Label" from Joanna at the Seams Likely blog here.


Note:  "Seams Likely" is her old blog, Joanna now blogs over at Joanna Masko Quilts.

Krista over at the popular Poppyprint blog did a post back in 2011 about:


.....which you can find here!

2/13/17 Updated To Add:

I came across another great article on creating labels by Maria Elkins titled:  Last But Not Least -- Label Your Quilt" that appeared in the November/December 2013 issue of Machine Quilting Unlimited magazine


In it she talks about what contact information to supply on your labels, offers great examples of decorative labels and discusses the Lost Quilt Come Home website she founded (a big reason why she is a proponent of labeling).   View the table of contents of the issue here and the back issue can be purchased  here

Another Update 3/2/17:  MQU has graciously provided a link to Maria's article on their website which you can pick up here:  http://machinequilting.mqumag.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/MQU-13-11-Nov-p14-18-Labels-Maria-Elkins.pdf !

3/2/23 Updated To Add:

Just found another fun way to create a label using scraps of the fabrics from your quilt.  Check out the end of  Pat's post over at her "Life in the Scrap Patch" blog where she explains how she makes these great signature block labels.