As a young quilter (young in both quilt years and age I suppose) I’ve more than once finished a quilt and not included a label. I know, amateur stuff. I went to a quilt guild meeting where the presenter embroidered beautiful labels but I have little experience with embroidery so that’s probably not right for me for every quilt. I also have terrible penmanship (I should have been a doctor it’s so terrible) so for gift quilts that’s not the solution either.
Wandering through Jo-Ann’s I found 100% cotton poplin PhotoFabric that you can print onto from any inkjet printer. I’d read about people affixing fabric to paper and running it through their machines which I’ll try another time but this seemed like a fool proof solution. I think it was $12 for 12 sheets so for about $1 per label it was worth giving a go.
When I got home I popped open Illustrator to put together some labels. I graduated from art school (albeit as a programmer) so I have plenty of experience with design programs along with some light design skills and a thing for typography. That being said my first go at the labels was lack luster to say the least. So I let that part of the project sit for a while…
Then as I realized I’d be picking up 2 quilts to bind and label within the next few weeks and I remembered this post I had pinned recently that had a number of really snazzy free fonts available to download
Feeling truly inspired I spent a bit more time on it and ended up with this magnificent label for my Solstice Star sampler.
Since I decided I wanted to use the whole 4×6″ space for the quilt label I adjusted the washing instructions so I could print 2 per 4×6″ piece. For the solstice star quote I added a favorite quote from the Sarah Williams poem The Old Astronomer to His Pupil and stars to mimic my favorite constellation, Boötes, which seemed to be quite apropos for the quilt in question.
I followed all the directions on the packaging: print, let it dry, rinse off, lay flat to dry. Pretty easy stuff. Then I pinked the edges to reduce fray and stitched them onto the backing of the quilt after it was quilted and bound while being careful not to push any stitches through to the front.
I’ve yet to wash a blanket with this label on it but I’ll be putting it through the ringer and posting up again after a few washes to let you know how it holds up!
Download the Printable Washing Label
I’ve posted the washing instructions 4×6″ PDF download on my downloads page so you can use it on your quilts too. Please post links to your blog post or Flickr photos in the comments if you use the label. I’d LOVE to see it out in the wild!
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Linking up with with Lee at Freshly Pieced and visiting many other work-in-progress Wednesday posts to provide encouragement and support to my fellow Internet sewists and quilters.
I have recently been researching labels for my handmade gifts… I have been quilting/sewing gifts for people for several years now and have yet to label one of them! I really must do something about that, so thanks for this post! It was definitely timely for me… and by the way the label you made for the Solstice Stars Quilt is adorable.
I haven’t made a single label yet. I’m so amateur, lol.
A couple of my early quilts didn’t have labels but as I make more of them I realize there’s a story with each quilt and my little label can at least participate in telling that story, especially when I’m not the recipient.
What a great idea for quilt labels! I know it’s wrong, but I have yet to put a quilt label on a quilt. I’m always so excited to have a finish (and usually down to the wire on a gifting deadline!) that I forget it entirely. But you’ve inspired me to give it a go, thank you!
I’ve used this template with slight modifications to make labels for three Christmas quilts too all I had to do was change the text and print and I had all four labels ready to go. Worked like a charm!
Such a pretty label – love the sentiment especially! Thanks for all of the good info too.