Labeling

I've been blogging for a few years now and only recently it's occurred to me why I need to label my posts. If I don't label I can't find something when I look back of my earlier posts. If you don't label properly, like I hadn't been doing, you have to go back over nearly each and every post. 
Can you hear my head banging into the wall?! Mr. Cowboy thought I'd lost my mind.
So hopefully from now on I'll be labeling heavily.

Binding & Labels & Sleeves, Oh My!

Hello everyone. I've been away from blogging for what seems like months but it's only been a couple of weeks. What have I been doing, you ask??

Well, I've been doing my very least favorite things!

1. Binding four quilts. I really don't like making and stitching binding. The quilts I worked on had been sitting, waiting for someone to finish them. But wait, I'm the someone. So I dug in and got that done, all by hand. I'll explain why in a minute.
2. Labeling quilts. Not my favorite thing to do because I have to hand stitch them down.
3. Sleeves! OMG!!!!! More hand stitching because I have a hair-brain idea of placing these quilts in my County Fair and possibly our State Fair in the summer. So of course, the quilts have to have things done by hand. 

I know I brought all this on myself and I am actually proud of myself for getting them down.

After all that was done, I was surfing my blogging friends and came upon a pretty quilt by 

Nancy at Wyoming Breezes. She named her quilt Diamond Facets and I was 

fascinated with her colors and the off center of the HST (half square triangles)

"Off Kilter" measures 46" by 53" and was done all from my enormous stash which continues to grow instead of diminish!!!

I don't know if or when I'll add a border but I love this little quilt.

Hands2Help Next Step

Whew! I've finally managed to sandwich and machine quilt my two choices in this endeavor. Needless to say, I was terrified of messing thing up but I was encouraged to try.

Here are some of the steps I did to sandwich the quilt tops.

Measure out the backing and press it . I know it doesn't look pressed but it is.

Using "masking tape" tape the edges of your backing to whatever surface stretching it taunt as shown. 

Lay batting next. I tend not to tape the batting but I'm sure that some do.

Next I lay the quilt top on and using the large safety pins, pin all layers together before removing the tape and relocating the sandwich at my sew machine.

 

 

  I meandered each quilt and was fairly happy with the outcome.
Binding is next and then labeling.

The quilts are quilted and the binding is all done.

I went with a unique labeling. Since I'm donating to Hands2Help, I decided to make a hand for each quilt as labels.

 

 

 

DMW

Design Wall Mondays always inspire me to get something done in the way of sewing. As most of you know, I've been into mug rug making this year. They are fun, quick to make and I love giving them away each Thursday.
I've made about 40 and with each I've started to expand my skills. I see them as my way of expressing the art side of me.
Here are two that are in the works now. I still need to get them stitched, quilted and bound.

 

 The hand below is a label I've made for the two Hands2Help quilts that I'll be mailing off very soon. I went with it instead of the tradition rectangle or square label just to add a little something extra.

 

Make sure you pop over to Judy's to see what others are doing on DWM.

 

Scrappy Raw-edged Quilt

This is one of my older small quilts from a one day workshop. It was fun and quilt. The instructions were to pre-cut four sized squares: 25- 6 1/2 inch squares; 25- 4 1/2 inch squares; 25- 3 inch squares and 25- 2 inch squares. 

Once at the workshop, the participants were to raw-edge (meaning all edged of the blocks are seen) stitch one of each squares to the other in whatever way desired. The "wacky" lady that I am, I chose to tilt each of the inner blocks. 

After stitching each row together, we were to choose a border. I was able to get everything stitched that day and later had it quilted. I made a raw-edged label coming up with the "Caddiwhompus" for my off kilter quilt.

Band Boosters

The band quilt is quilted (Kathleen), labeled and delivered. It was a labor of love and alot of fun. The label was my attempt at drawing. When I taught school, part of my job was teaching art to the 4th graders.....anyway, I used a Pigma pen to draw and write the information for the label.  I think it's neat to make a label that fits with the theme of the quilt, thus the lion, our mascot.

Easy & Quick Label

I wanted to make a special label for Ayden's quilt so I used a sheet of the T-shirt paper and made this cute little label for her.  If you're wondering about "Little Fire"..........her name literally means "Little Fire from the House for Armando."  Armando is her dad.

Label#7 & UFO .....No

#7 Label is finished and added to my collection. I feel like I'm really accomplishing something....sticking to my goal, for once. Look up in the sky, it's a bird, it's a plane, no it's.........the half moon. I just love watching the phases of the moon. It's amazing how only half of it is showing up. I know the whys but it's still neat to see.

New Thingy Plus Labels 5&6

My "wacky" friend Jerri suggested that I buy one of these recipe holder thingys because it really comes in handy when one needs to see the design. I have a tendency of laying my book or pattern down somewhere safe and then not being able to find it for several hours........lol......So here's my neat little stand.......very useful! Here are #s 5 & 6 labels. Note the angel's head & hair......all in the space of 1/2 inch. You can't be that accurate without paper-piecing it. I am really enjoying this paper-piecing book. So far 2 thumbs up.

Label #4

Today was a rough one. I worked in our church cemetery which we named "Fall Clean-up".......I realized that I really wasn't cut out to do that kind of stuff.....bending, raking, shoveling, did I mention bending. I was sweating all over the place. My back ached. I eyesight got a bit fuzzy around the edges. I head was spinning and that was just an hour into the project. By 3PM, I was completely wasted. But when I came home, grabbed a shower, took a nap, ate a snack, I managed to paper-piece 1 label. Now, I'm for bed.....later!

Labels & Postcards....Of My

Reporting about labels. I actually made 3 quilt labels instead of 2. It was easy using the paper piecing method. The hardest thing was choosing the fabrics....LOL....My mom was visiting and commented on the precision of each piece.....Thanks mom....it took me roughly an hour to make all 3! This is a great postcard from Carol. I love butterflies.....from afar.....LOL....those who really know me will get the LOL thingy......the fabric she chose for the wings look like the veins on butterfly wings.....Thanks Carol. Valerie's on vacation but sent me a wonderful postcard. Thanks Val!

Quilt Labels

I have been lax in making labels for my quilts. I just don't do much labeling and I know I'll live to regret it. So I've challenged myself to make a label for each quilt top that I finish, so that when it is quilted all I have to do is place me "already made" label on the back. I'm also challenging all of my blogger friends to make labels. I found this book in my collection and wanted to share it with you. "Foundation-Pieced Quilt Labels" is the title; by: Linda Causee; published by American School of Needlework #4196 I know some of you have never paper pieced and it might seem intimidating but the designs in this book are ease and inspiring. If you have other methods of labeling your quilts, please share them with us by leaving your kind words and comments, linking to your blog and sharing pictures of books and labels with us. I find that when I say something out loud, I'm more apt to follow through with it. So, I'm saying to all my blogging friends that tomorrow, September 29, 2008, I will make 2 labels and post pics tomorrow night! I can do this, I can do this, I can do this!