Quilt Labelling: thoughts and planning

Hello Friends and Welcome Back!

With the Summer Garden BoM coming to an end and my Meadow Mystery quilting progressing smoothly, I've once again been thinking about quilt labels.

One of my goals for this season is to figure out how I want to label my quilts and to establish a system for that. So far, I haven't labelled most of my finished quilts, the exception being Rainy Day Friends, which was made for the TrendTex challenge at Quilt Canada a few years ago. I was never really happy with how that label turned out, so I haven't taken part in any challenges since then.

Perhaps figuring out my labelling system will open the door for more challenges, more exciting patterns, and more finished quilts for me in the future?

Contents of a Quilt Label

A quilt label can be a very personal thing. Every quilt maker will have their own format for the shape of the label, the method it's created, and the content they include on it.

For some, a label is used like a greeting card; including details about the event it celebrates, recording wishes for the future, or acknowledging the person the quilt was made for. For others, the label gives credit to the people involved in the quilt's creation; the pattern designer, the quilt maker, and the quilter. There are others still who use a label for creative writing; sharing poetry, religious sentiments, or their thoughts while making the quilt. Finally, there are the minimalists; those who include very few details such as just the date or nothing at all.

Personally, I view my own quilt labels as a way of providing credit and of tracking the progression of my skills. So the details that are most important for me are;

• my name as the maker

• the title of the quilt

• the date completed

• additional credits such as pattern designer, collaborators, etc.

But I'm coming at labelling from the perspective of an artist as well. I see the quilts I make as a collective body of work rather than as totally separate items. So I'd like to number them to show that connection!

Putting all that information together, here's how one of my labels might look;

Rainbow Railfence

Designed, pieced, and quilted by

Valerie Anne

2020

VA.1

Or for a quilt with more contributors, the label might look like this;

Meadow Mystery

Pieced and quilted by

Valerie Anne

Based on a design by

Cheryl Brickley

2023

VA.4

I'm really happy with how this looks so far!

Label Design

With the content figured out, we need to shift our focus to the design of the quilt label. This includes thinking about size, shape, and medium.

With so much variety in the content of a quilt label, I don't believe there is any standardization in their size or shape. In my experience, quilt labels are commonly about the size of your hand and rectangular, but I've also seen quite a few triangular labels that fit into a corner of the quilt.

Personally, I'm partial to the triangular corner label.

There are also many different mediums used to create quilt labels, such as embroidery, marker, and image transfer. I am not particularly adept at embroidery and I don't like drawing on fabric with markers, but I have been really happy with past experimentation using textile ink.

I used ink to make my Rainy Day Friends label. As I've said, I wasn't totally satisfied with the results, so I'd like to make a set of stencils to help apply the ink and keep my labels consistent and legible. And while stencils based on a computerized font would be very crisp and neat, I'd like to make my stencils based on my own hand writing to maintain some of the personality of a hand made label.

I can't wait to get started!

Over the next few weeks, I'm hoping to assemble some stencils and make a few test labels. I'll be able to see just how well my plans and ideas work in actual practice, wish me luck!

I hope I'll have something more to show you next week!

Until Then Friends, Keep Creating!

~VA