The final flourish to making my hand embroidered and hand appliqued quilts is adding a special label. This one is for Green Thumb, a small quilt designed by Lynette Anderson that was completed back in April. While it was with the longarm quilter for several months, I had plenty of time to doodle some ideas for the label. Usually, I try to incorporate the theme from the front of the quilt into the label, and this one was no exception. A simple oval shape was chosen for the label, miroring the oval stichery blocks from the front. Using the flowers from one of the blocks as inspiration, I've sketched a simple floral design, with text in the middle. This is all drawn freehand, but you can easily use a font from your compter if you don;t have a steady hand or neat hand writing! When I'm happy with my design, I draw over the pencil lines with a very fine sharpie pen to complete my template. This can then be easily traced onto a piece of background fabric, using a light pad and a very fine nibbed Micron Pigma pen - my favourite one is the 005 nib...
...personally, I prefer to tape my stitchery designdirectly to the light pad then tape the fabric in place so it dosen't slide around while I'm tracing it. If you use a Micron Pigma pen, please remember the ink is permanent so you do need a very steady hand. Once the design is traced onto the background fabric, a small piece of lightweight interfacing is fused to the back of the fabric. The traced lines are then hand embroidered, and for this one I have chosen a selection of variegated Valdai threads in colours that were used for the embroidery on the front of the quilt. You can really make your labels as fancy as you like, and some of mine just have a few words, such as "stitched by Nicola Foreman" while others are much more decorative...
...once the label has been embroidered, it has a final press on my wool pressing mat. Then the label is trimmed to the correct shape, the edges are turned over and it is hand appliqued into place on the back of the quilt, taking care not to let any stitches show through to the front of the quilt. I'm sure there are lots of computer programmes that you can use for designing and printing quilt labels, but I much prefer to do mine by hand - and that's what makes me happy. And yes, I know the label won't be seen while it's on display, but it's there incase anyone wants to take a peek! A narrow quilt sleeve has already been hand stitched along the top of the back of the quilt ready for hanging this pretty quilt on a pole in my sewing studio.
RSS Feed
