Friday, January 29, 2016

Quilting and Quilt Label

Hand quilting continues on the Cheddar and Crackers quilt. I am still hoping on finishing the quilting this month.

I machine quilted the Dog Gone Cute quilt using organic lines.  I am going to show you how I made the quilt label. This quilt label is sewn into the binding of the quilt.  There are several benefits of doing it this way. First, you only have to hand sew two sides of it, since the other two sides are under the binding.  Second, it provides a nice professional finish. Third, it makes it harder to steal the quilt since someone cannot simply take out the label without having to re-do the binding.

I first pieced together the bonus triangles that came from making the front of the quilt. You know, those bits that you are supposed to throw away.  Since this is a label, I tried to keep all the white places together so they would form a continuous space to write the information for the label.


I wanted to include the raw edges in the seam allowance of the quilt.  That left two sides that would need to be hand sewn.  Since this is pieced, I wanted to make sure that these hand sewn sides were neatly turned under.  To do that, I sewed these two sides rights sides together to plain square.


Turn it right side out and poke out the corner. Note that the other two sides are still raw edges.


Align the raw edges to the edge of the quilted and trimmed quilt and pin in place.



Then baste it in place using a smaller seam allowance than you will use for the binding.  You will notice that I also folded squares in half and basted the triangles in place to serve as quilt hangers.  I just have to bind as usual to cover these raw edges.

When I sew the binding down, I plan the path for sewing that includes the label. Which means that I start the quilting near the label if I plan to do the label last. I usually start with the label first and then work my way around the quilt.  When I start near the label, I don't have to tie off the thread to end in one place and just to have to move to do the label.


4 comments:

Mrs. Goodneedle said...

I attach my quilt labels in a similar manner, attaching two sides (around the corner)at the same time as my binding. Since everything I do seems to become a career move for me, I usually bind the top and the inside edge (away from the quilt edge, if that makes sense)of the label and when I am hand stitching the folded edge of the binding in place on the back I attach those bound edges of the label too. This makes a little-bitty frame around my label. I'm a slave to these details! Ha!! Your quilt back looks great, love the wavy quilting lines!!

Kaja said...

This is a clever way to do a label and one I hadn't thought of: thanks for taking the time to get it down step by step.

June D said...

Yes, thank you for writing up how to sew in a label. I haven't really done one before. I have just written on either the Quilts for Kids provided labels or other charity provided labels and sewn them in - all four sides. For the other lap quilts I have written on the binding - but really unless one knows to look there the information is not seen. What do you actually write on your label?

: )

Allie-oops Designs said...

This is such a good idea - I'll have to do this! I love doing the triangles for hanging, I do that on my small quilts.