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There once was a time when I labeled my quilts with a Pigma pen and date with my name. Then I started making labels in Powerpoint with images and printed them to fabric for stitching to the quilt. Those were certainly the good ole days. Now my labels are multi-day and, sometimes, hours long processes. Here are the 2 most recent ones.  First I started with the Groovy quilt. I decided that I would do this one in color and see how well it holds up in the wash. I've had good luck with color photo labels in the past but they do fade a little more than black and white. I printed the text (using a new font that I spent 30 minutes finding and downloading) and then started drawing small Spirographs all around it. I didn't take any more process photos because I was too caught up in playing with the gears.  For Jackie's Choice I wanted an oval label because the family name starts with an "O". I know, it will be sideways, but that's the idea I fixated on so that's where I went. I started by trying a lot of different gears in an oval gear to see what pattern I liked best.  Another 30 minutes on the font website and I finally had the label printed and was ready to draw out the design.  I was able to get them both printed on one sheet of fabric! You can see that I colored in some of the sections on the Jackie's Choice label. I thought it needed a little extra. Here they are done!   In other news, the placemats will be done later today so I can post them tomorrow. Tomorrow is also quilt club sewing weekend so I'll have the second Hunter's Star quilt together by Monday.
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When I posted about my Wild Gears + Zentangle labels last week enough of you were interested that I thought I'd share a little more along with the last 2 finished quilt labels.  When you order Wild Gears they come like this. They are precision laser cut and there are a lot of gears on one sheet. This is the Compact Gear Set. The larger Full Gear set that I bough is about 16" square. The larger pen holes are for making parallel designs. You draw once in the large hole and the insert one of the little fillers in the same hole and draw again.  That's how I did this one.  I filled in the space to make a dark frame and then did Zentangle designs to fill the spaces.  For this label I nested one Wild Gears design in another. You can see the pencil lines that I used to center the ring on the label.  Here's the finished label. I draw my labels on paper and then photocopy them to fabric that's prepared for printing. You can get printable fabric from a lot of sources but I generally prepare my own.  These labels used the last of my stash of printer fabric sheets so it was time to make more this weekend. This is a pretty boring chore so I try to make enough to last me for a while. I fold about 4 yards of Pimatex fabric in a plastic container and pour a whole bottle of Bubble Jet Set over it and let if stand for a few hours to totally soak in. I use Pimatex because the tight, fine weave accepts printing detail better.
After the fabric is saturated I hang it over the shower rod to drip dry, I don't wring it. Hanging it to drain on it's own makes it much easier to iron. I iron it to freezer paper sheets and then I can store it indefinitely for future printing. Here are 55 sheets that I made Sunday so I'm set for a while. I am continuing my ice pack regime and my knee is getting better. Aside from doing squats and burpees, driving and sewing are the worst activities for it. Tomorrow I'm teaching at Visarts so Chris is going to take me and spend a couple of house in Carytown while my class is going on.
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About Vicki
I'm Vicki Welsh and I've been making things as long as I can remember. I used to be a garment maker but transitioned to quilts about 20 years ago. Currently I'm into fabric dyeing, quilting, Zentangle, fabric postcards, fused glass and mosaic. I document my adventures here. Categories
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February 2020
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