Are you like me? I never gave much thought to labeling a quilt when I started quilting (such a long time and many quilts ago). Three things happened to open my eyes to how important quilt labels can be.
I inherited a stack of quilts made by my great-grandmother’s sister. No labels on anything, no clue as to whom each one was made for and how they tied into our family.
While browsing through a “junque” shop in Seattle – I found a gorgeous hand-pieced double wedding ring quilt top that had been stuffed into a box of stuff that hadn’t sold at someone’s estate sale. My heart ached that the family didn’t understand the value of this work of art and they tossed it out.
As we all should do at some point we started the process of creating our wills and doing some end-of-life planning. What to do with all these quilts – will our kids do the same as the family that got rid of the double wedding ring quilt?
Every quilt needs a label
These days (to avoid the situations I talked about earlier) every quilt I make large and small – gets a label. No matter what. Some of them are very simple – some of them tell a longer story.
The example in the picture above tells the story of how I worked through two years of COVID, never-ending political and social unrest on the news and in our community as well as the challenges of quarantining as a nation. Many of us made quilts to express our feeling about his turbulent time – this one is mine – and the label is every bit as important to the work – as is the front of this small wall quilt.
Check back often to this section – I will be adding a gallery of quilt label images, lots of labels you can use for your own quilts, and suggestions for wording and key information you should consider for any quilt label. In the meantime – check out the Quilt Labels portion of my Shop. You’ll also find a couple of great books on Quilt Labels in the Books section of the Shop. And … AVAILABLE NOW – my own line of quilt labels that you can customize and print at home on your inkjet printer.
