Quilt Labelling

On Monday, I finished my husband’s quilt. It was such a good feeling.

Once I was finished I knew the only thing I had left to do was the labeling of the quilt. I love to document my quilts and the quilt label is certainly the most important part of that.

All my quilts, so far, have had a proper, hand embroidered label. Some of them were more successful than others, and I am certainly getting better as I go along, but for this one, as it was for one of the most important people in my life, I wanted it to be very special and different from the ones I had made previously.

I have been playing with many options, but I knew for sure that I wanted to use some scrap pieces from the flannel prints I used  on the front of the quilt. After choosing the fabric, I took out a notebook and began scribbling ideas for the text, deciding against anything too personal as this quilt will hopefully be exhibited in May.

After that I squared up all my scraps to start planning for the design.

Although I had appliquéd my labels to the back of the quilt before, this one, would be a lot thicker, as it is flannel, so I wanted to do it right.

In the summer, when I was on vacation in Bermuda, I visited “The Barn” which is basically a second hand shop.

I picked up this little book, which has come in handy on many occasions when I don’t feel like getting on the internet to answer a simple question I have.

It is called The Quilting Answer Book and it is by Barbara Weiland Talbert. It’s subtitles, are “Solutions to Every Problem You’ll Ever Face” and “Answers to Every Question You’ll Ever Ask”. With my project sitting in front of me I wondered if it had the information I was looking for on seam allowances for appliquéing it to my quilt etc.

This book has received an average of 4 1/2 of 5 stars on Amazon,  see the 45+reviews on Amazon, using the book’s link above.

Of course, with a name like that, I couldn’t help but to be a bit sceptical about it’s contents. Not knowing if this was the type of book you would find in, for example, your local Walmart or whether it would be found in any local quilt shop with a well stocked quilt book selection.

So began the beginning of my assessment of this little book. First of all I researched Barbara Weiland who I found out had a decent sewing background, but I am not familiar with her as a quilter. Not that that means anything. Checking out her blog though, I can see that she does some great work. I especially liked her Sew Let’s Sew, quilted wall hanging. The pattern is available together with some other patterns of hers on Craftsy.

 

In her book she recommends using a 3/16ths of an inch seam allowance, but I didn’t have these measurements on my ruler, so I decided to use 1/2 ” as I probably have in the past. I assume there are quilting rulers with those mini increments but unfortunately none of my Omnigrid rulers have them.

As I am usually using a thin, white cotton fabric, I wasn’t sure how to approach getting the words onto the thick flannel and how I should piece the two layers of fabric. I decided to do the writing and embroidering before sewing them to the darker backing fabric.

 

This time I used graphing paper to plan out the spacing of my words and letters better, I don’t think I was so good at the spacing of the words, but using the graph paper really helped with the lettering. Once I was satisfied with that, I retraced everything to make it as dark as possible, so that it would be possible on this overcast day to see the letters through the thick flannel.

And then I proceeded as usual.

 

This time I used a thinner DMC Pearl Cotton than usual # 8, which generally is looking pretty good, though sometimes I space my stitches too far apart.

I am now a bit further along, than in the picture. Don’t ask me why I am working backwards! Maybe it is because I am using the backstitch? In any case I need to get ready for a date tonight. Of course my creative pursuits this afternoon have distracted me from both,  going on a walk in this beautiful snow and shovelling the snow out of our driveway!

May I say one more thing. It is soooooo relaxing to just stitch, embroider in the hoop and see a piece of work come to life. I am so excited to get this finished!

So have you got any creative projects that you are working on?   I would love to hear about them!

Jodie