Personalize Your Quilt Using Quilt / Applique Labels

[Music] Hi, I'm Jenny from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. Today I want to talk to you about labeling your quilt. This is a really important part of the quilt making process and we there are lots of options out there for labeling. You can now buy panels of labels. This has like 36 labels on it with all different little cute things to help you label your quilts. You can buy use papers that you can actually um print out pictures, put in information on your computer, and then just run this through your printer and it will print out and you can iron it on to your quilt. Um you can put little things like this on there that uh tell tell people that that's handmade, although it doesn't have information. But when you write on a label, whenever you're writing on a label, you want to use some kind of a permanent marker. These are pigment pens and they come in different um tip widths so that whether you want to write fine or you want to write thick, you know, whatever works. Um sometimes I just grab a Sharpie because that's how I do it. I just quickly grab what's close at hand and it's permanent so it will it will last. It won't wash out. Sometimes I even just write on the back of my quilt what I'm doing. But the important part is to label it. And why do we want to label our quilts? Well, let me just tell you a little story about that first. I believe every quilt has a story and every quilter has a story. But these stories these quilts tell are amazing. There were two gals that came in. Their names are Ernestine and Maxine and they were in their late 80s and they brought in this bunch of quilts and one of them was this quilt behind me and their the quilts are gorgeous and their mother had made them for them. They are just a couple of years apart and so they all had these matching quilts, you know, from their childhood beds and things like that. And they wanted to know if I wanted to buy them. And I was like, "Oh my gosh, Shirley, you know, don't you want to give these to people in your family? You know, I love family quilts and I just, you know, it's such an honor to have those things from the past." and she said that they had never married and that their children um they had never had children and they were the only children of their parents and so they really didn't have anyone to leave them to. Well, this was this was kind of sad to me uh because I have so many children and they all want my quilts. But um one of the things that uh I decided to do right then was that I was going to label these quilts so that the world would know forever who made these quilts. So I said to Maxine and Ernestine, "Please, would you bring me a picture of your mom?" so that I can scan it into my computer and make a label so that the whole world will know forever who made these quilts. Because even if these quilts, say, say you make a quilt and you don't know how, but it ends up in the Goodwill and somebody walks along that aisle and they're going to go, "Oh my gosh, I can't believe I found this." Every quilt becomes an heirloom. Whether you know, whether somebody in your family loves it or not, it becomes an heirloom and they're just amazing and beautiful. So, if the story is on the back, then you know the story of the quilt. So, they brought in this picture for me of their mom and her name was Lahie Cordis. I love her name. Even Lahi, how cute is that? So, I took this picture and I scanned it into my computer so that I could print it out on one of these papers so that I would always have the information about this quilt so that everybody will always know the story of it. It's important to put around the time it was made, who it was made for, and those kinds of things so the story is told. And then I went to hand the picture back to her and she said to me, "Just keep the picture. I don't have anyone to give it to." And so I put this picture on my bulletin board and every day it reminds me how important it is to label your quilts. So whether your quilts for a wedding or a new baby or a graduation or whatever event you're making it for, make sure that you tell that quilt story on the back because every quilt has a story. And we hope you enjoyed this tutorial from the Missouri Star Quilt Company. [Music]