quilt labels

Hi ladies!

I am just finishing the binding on a quilt, and I want to put on a quilt label. How do you do this? I was thinking of embroidering the details directly onto the back, but then, there must be an easier method. I have the pigma pens, but writing on fabric is difficult and it looks messy to me. Do you cross stitch information? What do you do for your labels? Thank you for your input. Carolyn

I use my embroidery machine to make a nice label. You can use some fabric that is in your quilt or backing...or use what ever you think looks nice. You can actually use the pigma pens and write your information onto fabric and then hand sew it to the back of your quilt. If you do this, I would reccomend ironing some freezer paper (shinney side on wrong side of fabric) to stabilize your fabric for writing. If you decide to embroider your information, you can do this on a seperate piece of fabric and hand stitch it to the back also.
Sometimes I do some fussy cutting of motiffs and fuse them to the label...or applique. There really is no 'wrong' way to make a label, it is your personal choice.

I have seen labels done all sorts of ways and they all look wonderful. It is your choice as to how you want your label to look.....and remember to post PICTURES! :lol:

Here is another way. I made a couple like this for wall hangings, but don't know how they would hold up on a quilt.
http://limelady.livejournal.com/106122.html

When I have finished a quilt I take a Sharpie and write directly on the back of the quilt. My idea is that any label you sew on can come off while indelible ink stays forever, or at least for the life of the quilt. I write my name, the year, and the place. Sometimes I have written for whom I made the quilt and the occasion (like marriage or 16th birthday). But mostly, it's simple and short.

I know that I am way in the minority here. In fact, the only other person to label quilts directly on the quilt was my mother, who didn't use a pen, but who did fine embroidery. But I find that the older I get, the more in a minority I am, about almost everything. No one seems really interested in hand quilting. My quilts take a year to do because the piecework is the merest beginning. It's the quilting itself that I enjoy. And buying the fabrics, of course. I have enough in my closet (and on the floor in various piles) to take care of my life for the next fifty years!

Auntyjane.... that is a really good idea! Since I sometimes sell my quilts, I always wonder if the buyer might rip off my label and make something of thier own and put on my quilt BUT... if I was to write with a Sharpie my information, under the label, then it would have my name on the quilt itself.

Aunty Jane..I'm a hand quilter too..and sometimes I quilt the year and my initials in the quilting near the bottom. Using a sharpie would scare me. What if it bled through? :affraid:
My DH and DS have been scolding me because I haven't put a label on my most recent quilts. I dunno..I guess I don't think it's that important?

Dear AOL, Funny you should say about not putting a label on at all. That was how I felt when I first started quilting. I write on my quilts now (the pens really don't bleed through; you shouldn't be afraid!) because I belong to Guilds which insist on it and because I put my quilts in their shows. Plus, I got tired of defending myself. I just got worn down.

I have always felt that you knew everything you needed to know about the quilter just from looking at the quilt. You certainly can tell who's a slob, who's a perfectionist, who follows fashion, who stitches to a different drummer, who's color blind and who's in a hurry. These things seem so much more important to me than knowing her name and where she lives. The year, I grant, is interesting. But, you're doing my first choice which is to let my quilts stand, with my self written all over them in the design and stitching, but without the distraction of my name and address.

(One of the best quilters in one of my Guilds puts lengthy explanations, of the design, the geneology of her family, the number of hours it took to make the quilt, and all kinds of things including pictures on her labels. Overkill and vanity, I think.)

I agree that you can tell alot about the quilter just from looking at the quilt. The County Fair Board wanted me to judge the quilts placed in the fair. I told them I couldn't do that because I could tell who made the quilt just by looking at it and that wouldn't be fare since I would know the maker! I don't think they quite understood that

I am one to put quite a bit of information on a quilt label. Usually it's:

Name of Quilt or Quilt Pattern
Who it's made for
The occasion
My name
Month/Year it was given.

Sometimes I put a message to the person I'm giving it to, i.e. for my granddaughter, "Lucy, I loved you even before I knew you."

I don't view it as vanity at all. I view it as information for someone years from now to cherish. I have a quilt which we think was made by my grandmother, but we aren't 100% sure. I would love to have all of the above information. I would tell my daughter about it and she in turn would tell her daughter.

I like quilt labels esp. if you can make it personal to the person you made it for.
This is the small, very simple label I put on the String Quilt I made my DH for Christmas.

Paws, I love that label, how did you make it, I've made mine by hand and they are too big and not as neat. I would like to learn how to make them nicer. Norma

Krafty, they are easy. I make my Photo Cloth with muslin and freezer paper. It goes thru my printer just fine.

This one I used a post card background from my American Greetings Program OR
you can make a text box on your photo cloth the size you want. This one is about
4 1/2 x 5 1/2". Just type in your information.

Thanks Paw, I am going to have to make some of these.... yours looks so neat... plus it was a very nice note to DH.

I use the alphabet on my SM to make the labels usually I use backking fabric and attach it in with the bi. Sometimes I put the words directly on the binding
Usually the name of the quilt who designed it who made it the occasion, the fabric and what kind of batting and lastly the year it was made

I use a sharpie or Pigma most of the time. The Pigma won't generally run. The Sharpie will if you "rest" the pen in one place. Another thing I sometimes do is quilt the info while i am doing the quilting. For my guild's comfort quilts, I write the label on a nice piece of pale fabric and someone else sews it on. Early on in my quilting life, I had a bunch of personalized labels printed onto fabric by the local T shirt shop, then added date, name etc. afterwards. I rarely want to take the time to embroider a quilt back, especially since it could be toe-nailed.

I just do mine with pigma pen, what I write depends on who or what the quilt is for but I always put around the edge my full name, location at the time and date. I usually make labels from left over pieces of the quilt, even if its a light cream label with border made from matching prints. I always stitch them to the bottom right hand corner, dunno why, just where it seems it should be