Category

Quilt

Category
In Quilt

Quilt Labels

1 Comment

Quilt labels can tell stories, and someday, someone is thankful to at least know the name of the quilt maker.

When I make quilts, they sort of become a part of my life journey. Together with the process, entangles a lot of hidden memories. 

Some of my quilts take years from start to finish. In between those years, there are many memories that I can reminisce about as I look at the quilts years after.

That is one of the main reasons why I keep this blog. It is one of the ways of memory keeping as I am making my quilts. 

CHECK OUT Quilt Label Wizard – the course that’ll teach you to make beautifully printed quilt labels from start to finish!

I like to record the quilt-making process, tell a little story of what has inspired the quilt-making process and all the little things happening around my life as I made those quilts. 

Hence, I find it important for me to label my quilts. While I keep some of the details on the blog, I would like for the quilt itself to have some details of the maker (me) and maybe the year or the name of the pattern. 

The quilt we make may outlast us, and the labels will at least be there to tell a little story if not much. So, the label is not just for me, but for the people who will somehow find the quilts I make.

What to write on the Quilt Labels

How to print quilt label

One or two pieces of info are usually enough, name and the year are my favorite info to have on the quilt. However, you can also be creative and have more details on the labels. Here are some ideas on what to put on your quilt labels. 

  • Quilt Top Maker’s Name
  • Quilter’s Name
  • A blog that someone can find more about the quilts (I put The Little Mushroom Cap on mine) who knows, someday at least it can be a keyword to search on google. 
  • The year it was made and completed
  • Name of the receiver
  • Short Quotes
  • Short Notes 
  • The location where it was made
  • Care Instructions
  • Quilt Pattern used

Example of Quilt Labels

There are many quilt labels options that you use to label your quilt.

This one is a gorgeous hand-drawn by @piecefulkwilter for me.

  • Embroidery labels – You can hand embroider or do machine embroidery.

I have one label that I hand-embroidered but yet to put on the quilt! I should have done my research about the colour of the thread bleeding cause that is why it hasn’t got onto the quilt just yet. 

  • Create custom labels on a computer and print it out using your own printer or send it to print on fabric. (more on this down below!)

How to label handmade quilts

Labeling a handmade quilt can be something that you can start thinking and planning as you are at the end of the quilt-making process. While there are many creative ways you can stick that label to your quilt, here are some common ways you can put the quilt label onto your quilts:

Sew it in the backing fabric before quilting

Sew it on the corner of the quilt when sewing the binding

 

Applique the labels on the quilt backing

You can read more about this quilt here.

Now, if you are interested to make fun quilt labels, designing various type of labels on the computer and printing it out is a great option. 

How to make custom-printed quilt labels

There are affiliate links within this post from which I may earn commissions from. Find the full disclosure here. 

Just to note, you can always just simply label your quilts with Micron Pen and just handwrite the label. But, you can also opt for custom personalized printed quilt labels!

I love cute label designs.

They add a little more fun and a fine finish to your quilts. 

They are actually pretty simple to make and if you want to make beautiful quilt label designs, you don’t want to miss out on the course that’ll teach you how to do this easily! You can be done in 2-hours with over 50+ labels!!

 

Sign up and reserve your spot today! Click the link below to the sign-up page.

Quilt Label Wizard – the course that’ll teach you to make beautifully printed quilt labels from start to finish!

Make beautiful personalized quilt labels and let the labels hold your quilt story.

by
Keep Reading
In Quilt

Kaleidoscope Sew Along

No Comments

Kaleidoscope Sew Along is coming

A burst of colors is always a good fun thing! 

Let’s join the upcoming sew along!

I have got some new fabrics (I’ll be sharing with you when we get started) but a sew-along is always a great time to bust your stash too. 

kaleidoscope sew along

All you have to do is get the book Kaleidoscope HERE>,

dive into your beautiful colorful stash, 

or you can also get the kit for the bed runner that we will be sewing along HERE>

There are affiliate links in this post, please find full disclosure here.

by
Keep Reading
In Quilt

Quilt Background Fabric

2 Comments

In this post, I thought it’ll be fun to chat about background fabrics.

What is background fabric for quilting?

Most of the quilt pattern calls for a background fabric. The background fabric is usually the one that is not the star of the quilt and allows the pattern of the quilt block to pop and shine out.

Without the difference between a background and the pattern that we want to create, the quilt will just blend all over. This is an option too if you want to create such a quilt. You can see what I mean in the example below. 

The scrappy trip is made with all printed fabrics, and no specific colour or specific fabric as the background. The pattern does have a design that brings our eyes to see the diagonal patterns but it does not really pop out as much.

If I were to make the same pattern with a background fabric, I can select one background fabric and incorporate that fabric in each of the blocks as the centre and that will give the quilt a more structured look. 

In this swoon quilt (blogged here), I have chosen a white background to make the carpenter’s star shine and take the lead of the quilt. Of course, with this kind of pattern, there is no way to go about it except to have background fabrics. Otherwise, you’ll simply lose the design altogether. 

In the wall hanging there (blogged and tutorial here), I use two different solid as the background, but both a lighter colour to make the pattern of the blocks stand out. 

 

While both types of quilts is beautiful, fully scrappy or structured, I am drawn to making quilt blocks with background fabrics as I find it fun to create the blocks and to have some clean area to just rest my eyes on.  

Even in scrappy quilts, it is always a good idea to have a background to anchor in all the scrappiness. Allowing the eyes to rest a little within the scrappy busy fabrics. Now, this does not mean that the background fabric has to be one single fabric. They can still be scrappy too but has to be in contrast to all the other scrappiness in the quilt. 

And if you play with scraps, you can use colour values to make the block design stand out. My kid just made a star block out of my scraps and I must say it turned out pretty well! I think a whole quilt with this block, with some sashing (in background colour) in between the blocks, would look stunning!

 

White-on-white or tone-on-tone background fabric

This is my favourite background fabric. There are some patterns on them, but they are still the same colour as the fabric itself. I love this as it gives the quilt a different view when you look at it from an angle. It is like a surprise element of the quilt when you look at it close or at a certain angle. 

I have recently bought a fat quarter bundle of this kind of fabrics HERE>

I thought it would be great to list them all here so that I can also grab them easily when I need a background fabric for my upcoming projects. Each of the ones listed below is linked to the yardage.

Tone on Tone Background Fabrics

Swiss Dot: Small Dots tone on tone (Riley Blake)

 

Blossom : Small little flowers, white on white. I love this so much. I just got some more – they are on sale this month! 20% off. They also come in all different colours. Check them all out here. 

 

Houndstooth:  Small very dense houndstooth. 

Stitched flower: ring of flowers, various flowers design allover

Large Dots: These are pretty large dots and obvious. Fun.

Large Dots: These are pretty large dots and obvious. Fun.

Connected stars: The pattern doesn’t look like stars to me, but geometric. Quite dense as well.

 

 

 

 

Orange Peel.

 

White scrolls: Thin lines of swirl and scrolls. The design is pretty large. 

Tonal white Sweet Dots: very sweet indeed. This one is suitable for a lot of patterns, I can see that! Very cute dots allover. 

 

Snowflakes: For all the winter and seasonal quilts. The snowflakes are quite large – each one ~1″ in size

Tiny Scattered Dots: The tiniest, cutest barely there but perfect for a lot of patterns too. Similar to Tonal white sweet dots above, but a little more cream-ish in colour. 

 

Pin Drops – pins scattered all over. White on white. I also love this one. Pins are a perfect match for a sewist’ quilt.

Cherries! This one is a fun one, summer feeling.

White Stars tone on tone – handrawn stars scattered.

Chicken Scratch – scratches all over

Scrappy low volume background fabric

Here is another common choice for a background. This also suits my style of fabrics as I can just use the fat quarters I have in my stash to make it work. 

Low volume means that the fabric has very few colours on it. Or with very small motifs on them. 

Here is an example where I use low volume fabric as the background fabrics and I use a different fabric for different blocks. When I put all these blocks together, they will still look cohesive as they have the same tone backgrounds but yet they are actually scrappy. 

if you don’t have much of this low volume fabric but like to try this look, you can check out bundles of a mix of low volume fabrics HERE, ready to use in a quilt. 

Dark background or light background fabric for a quilt?

I usually tend to choose a light background, but I sometimes try to add in a dark coloured background fabric as a part of the ‘called for background’, for example in sashings or the borders. 

For example, if the quilt pattern calls for all of the same fabric for the background and sashings, I may try to add in a different sashing than the fabric I used for the background. 

This started because I don’t usually have more than 2 yards of fabric in my stash, but I am starting to like the idea of doing so. 

I have this quilt top that I chose a dark sashing

and this quilt that I used a low volume for the large setting blocks. 

So, basically, sometimes we have to be creative in using our stash. It doesn’t mean that if the quilt pattern calls for. We can make do with what we already have in stash.

 

Bold background fabric

Opting for a dark background is considered quite bold for me, but I am yet to try bright yellow or red as a background. I think this would look wonderful for a scrappy quilt. 

For example, my scrap vomit quilt is shown below with bright pink and dark grey fabric chosen as the centre. I guess this is not considered as a background, but I have a feeling that scrappy quilts are great to be in combined with those bold, bright fabrics. 

Here are some of my inspirations for my new challenge to use bold fabric for my next scrappy quilt. 

Red background fabric is something I haven’t tried before. 

Here is a scrappy string quilt as an inspiration (The image is originally from here)

or yellow background. I love yellow but I have also never made a yellow background quilt before. Maybe that is about to change. 

Image below is from Pinterest here.

This one is an interesting one with mix orange and pink bright background. Vintage quilts always amazes me with the choice of colours. Image is taken from Pinterest here.

 

What do you think?

Textured background fabric

Another great option for a background is using textured background fabric. This can be a different type of fabric than the quilting cotton such as linen, textured linen, chambrays, cross-weave fabrics or even denim. 

When using other types of fabric, we do need to pay more attention to the quilting, the stitch length as they may fray a lttle more, and may stretch differently too. 

by
Keep Reading
In Quilt

Sewcialites Quilt Along Update

3 Comments

An almost complete quilt top to show today! 

I am loving this finish so much, can’t wait to baste this quilt this weekend and start quilting it. 

This is another post for the update on my Sewcialites Quilt. This is a FREE quilt along that has just ended but you are free to download the patterns even though the QAL has ended.

(The QAL began on Friday, September 25, 2020 and will be ending on Friday, July 2, 2021)

You can check out some of my previous posts on the blocks and some of the tips and things I learned as I made these blocks. 

 

by
Keep Reading
In Quilt

Homemade Fabric Starch for Quilting

10 Comments

I’m sharing with you my newly found love, my homemade fabric starch recipe.

Now before I go on, I have heard about starching fabric before, but I was never really convinced enough that it’ll make such a big difference. Besides, to add another step to the quilting process? “Um, I’ll pass.”

(There are affiliate links within this post, find the full disclosure here.)

However, recently I was triggered by the idea again when I started to follow Kimberly of FQShop every Friday sewing the Sewcialites Blocks. She has always starched her fabrics, and by the look of it, the fabrics look pretty stiff and super flat when she handles them. She always mentions starching and I guess, why not give it another try. 

But I am not really fond of the store-bought starch (although this one has raving reviews and very popular among quilters). I try to avoid products with lots of synthetic chemicals in them. Starch is one of them.

My favourite 505 Basting spray is also another I am not fond of due to the harm that it may cause.

But… I figured, at least, the basting spray is going to be inside the quilt sandwich and I won’t have to really touch it directly when the basting is done. 

However, with spray starch, these residuals that stay on the fabric may linger around as we touch the pieces, sew with them, and press. So, I have been trying my best to avoid it. Not that it is proven to be bad though. I was just uncomfortable with the thought of it. 

Hence that lead me to try making and using a homemade starch solution.  Together with the new-to-me method of starching fabric, I am now regretting I didn’t try this earlier. 

by
Keep Reading