What's Up and a Quick Label Tutorial

I have been trying to get back to the nuts and bolts of my sewing.  Too much work and not enough sewing - makes a person cranky!  Do you ever get that way?  Sometimes I think it's also related to summer - there seems to be so much more to do that is not sewing.  Concerts and picnics and theater and yardwork and gardening.  I still haven't seen Magic Mike - what the heck, how did I miss that?  Now the Olympics are on and I'm trying to watch swimming and gymnastics while avoiding some of the other sports that I'm not interested in.  Do you watch the Olympics?  Will Michael Phelps win an individual medal in swimming?  Will he take gold again?  Hmmm...I guess we'll know soon enough.
 
I did finish my Picture Perfect Polaroid blocks and got them in the mail today - early!  Yea!  I went sort of crazy making these little blocks and ended up sending 90 blocks to the swap.  I have at least another 50 that I made and kept...all that chain piecing must have mesmerized me.  It takes 9 little blocks to make one block, so I should be in good shape.  Here's a picture of the blocks before they went off in the mail:

    
    I joined two other new bees (I know I said I wouldn't but one is a very small bee that is a Round Robin with wonderful people in the bee, all of whom I personally know and like.  The other is Bee Awesome, a bee where we will help each other finish up bee or swap projects - you know, where you didn't get all your blocks when it was your month, or people quit before your month or people just disappeared or they sent you blocks that you couldn't use...not bitter or anything, just making a list!).

    Several people have emailed me asking me to share my quilt labeling technique, so here goes.  When I decided it was time to make quilt labels, I went online to see what other people were doing.  Some people make hand written labels using a permanent marker.  Some people make elaborate labels with hand stitching.  Some people make their labels on the computer.  That's my choice.

    First, I suggest you buy some printable fabric sheets.  I bought these at JoAnn's with a 50% off coupon.

Then you should choose what font you want to use, whether you are going to use color on the label and what you are going to say.  I learned that I wanted my labels centered on the paper and that I wanted to fit as many labels on the sheet as possible.  I suggest you print it out on plain paper first to be sure that you like what you see.and follow the instructions on the back of the printable fabric sheets and soak and dry your printed labels before taking the next step.   I ended up with a page of labels that looked like this:

Here's a close up:

Next you cut up your labels and you can either fuse them on to your quilt, with maybe a pinked edge or you can take the next step.  I wanted to fuse the label on to fabric that I used in the quilt to make the label more visually pleasing, so I did this:

I may pink the fabric sheet before fusing it onto the Dewberry fabric.  Next I'll fuse the pinked label onto the back of my quilt.  If you wanted a more polished look to your labels, you could turn under the raw edges of the pinked fabric.  You could also stitch the label to  your quilt in addition to fusing, or skip fusing entirely and just stitch.  I'm happy with fusing onto the quilt in most circumstances, so I'm skipping the "stitch the label to the quilt" step.  It's all personal preference, so do what seems to work for you. 

I hope you found this helpful.  If you have tips about labeling to share, please leave a comment and we'll all learn together!  

Aaaanyway, that's it from the Robertson household.

We Have A Winner of the Tula Pink Fat Quarter Bundle!

There were 174 entries on the blog and 22 entries by email for a total of 196 chances to win the Tula Pink The Birds and The Bees fat quarter.  And the winner is...drum roll...Amys Crafty Shenanigans.  I used random number generator to pick the winner, but I did read each and everyone's entries about what they would make with the fabric.  A lot of great ideas out there!

Congratulations Amy.  Please send your mailing information to me at
cakath11@gmail.com and I'll get the package out to you hopefully on Monday.

Now I'll have to cook something up for another good giveaway.  Anything anyone would really like to see in a giveaway?  Within reason of course!

Have a great weekend and keep on sewing!

Aaanyway, that's it from the Robertson household.

Today is Giveaway Day But Meanwhile I'm Having Fun with Polaroid Blocks

Thank you all for the tremendous response to the Tula Pink The Birds and The Bees fat quarter giveaway.  At 7:00 p.m. PST I'll close the giveaway and then hope to have the winner posted by Saturday morning.  There is still time to enter - just go to my post and follow the instructions to enter.  I've been petting the fabric - those lavenders are really something!

Meanwhile, I mentioned last week that I had joined the Picture Perfect Polaroid Block Swap Here and have been fussy cutting my way to lots and lots of little polaroid blocks for the swap.  It's a lot of chain piecing, pressing and cutting apart after the fussy cutting, but the blocks do go together rather quickly. 

After fussy cutting the blocks, I first did this:

Then this:



And finally this:

The first 15 little snapshots for the swap!  If you would like to see a tutorial on how to make these blocks, CapitolaQuilter has a great one HERE. There are 60 swappers in this swap, so I can send duplicates of some blocks and not create any problems for the swap momma Deb.  She will have her hands full spreading out all of the little blocks she gets from so many swappers!

I better get myself to work and stop dilly-dallying around here on the internet!

Aaaanyway, that's it from the Robertson household this Friday morning.

How About A Tula Pink Giveaway?

Giveaway is now closed. Thanks for entering.  Winner to be announced tomorrow!

I was thinking that it was time for a giveaway.  What to giveaway, I ask myself?  Myself said:  FABRIC!  I contacted my friend Julie at Intrepid Thread (Here) and picked up a beautiful fat quarter assortment of Tula Pink's new fabric line, The Birds and The Bees.  In addition to having the best prices on fabrics, Julie put together a beautiful selection of The Birds and The Bees in Mist and here it is:

If you win, you will receive 9 fat quarters of Tula Pink's new line sent to you compliments of Doodles and Designs.  What do you need to do to win?  If you are already a follower, please send a comment telling me what you would like to make with this fabric.  If you are not a follower, please become a follower and let me know that you are a new follower and, if you would like a second chance at winning, send me another comment with your plans for the fabric (so sorry - in my earlier post I said email twice when I meant comment- big mistake on my part.  Not to worry, if you emailed, you are in the running but let's go with comments from here on.) That will give you 2 chances at winning. The winner will be chosen by Random Number Generator.  The giveaway ends at 7:00 p.m PST Friday, July 20th. 

Hope you like this giveaway as much as I do.  I love this fabric line and look forward to sharing this fabric line with one of you.  Good luck!

THIS GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED - THANKS FOR ENTERING!

WINNER TO BE ANNOUNCED TOMORROW

Aaaanyway, that's it from the Robertson household.

Taking Friday Off

I decided to take the day off from work and spend time sewing.  I joined the Picture Perfect Polaroid Block Swap here a few days ago and got busy with the fussy cut center blocks.  The idea is to try not to duplicate other blocks, or have as little overlap as possible, so that you don't get alot of the same blocks back.  Lucy's Crab Shack is a popular fabric, so I may have to keep those blocks and send the others.  My plan is to send 30 to 40 completed blocks and keep the rest.  There are more than 50 people in the swap, so I should get a good variety in return.  My blocks are:

The swap is still open as long as you can meet the August 15, 2012 mailing deadline.

Onto a big accomplishment (o.k. not that big to most, but certainly for me!:)

My friend Jaye has been gently encouraging me to get labels on my quilts.  I must admit, I have been very slow about doing this.  Perhaps slow is not the right word.  I agree with Jaye in theory about the importance of labels on quilts, but I have been having a difficult time getting myself to the point where I actually take the time to make a label, much less labels for all the quilts that are finished and unlabeled. 

I looked on line for ideas about labels.  I bought some inkjet fabric pages for labels.  I bought a wonderful permanent fabric pen for handwriting labels.  I just didn't make the labels!

But I have changed my wanton ways (at least with respect to labels) and today, in a matter of 15 minutes, I made all of the labels for my quilts, past and present.  I'm actually ahead!!!  I have labels for quilts that are being quilted and I won't get back for a few more weeks.  Yahoo! 

O.K.  I know that the labels aren't actually on the quilts yet.  The labels are not attached or affixed or any other word that would connote completion of the labeling process, but they exist and that's a big step for me.  Do you label your quilts promptly?  Do you have a good hint for making labels?  What specifically do you use for your labels?  I'd love to have more ideas for labels.

Besides spending 15 minutes actually making labels, I have been buying fabric from Julie at Intrepid Thread for an upcoming quilt.  My color inspiration was:

Cerise and Mustard - colors that I have not used in a quilt as yet.  I will limit the quilt to these 2 colors in solids, and then lots of prints (with one or both colors) and tone on tone fabrics. 


Some of the fabrics I am considering are:

I have to wait a few days to receive the fabrics and then I can decide if they will play well together!  I also purchased Kona Cerise and Kona Curry if you have your Kona color card handy.  The mustard fabrics may be too brown.  Maybe this is really a Cerise and Curry quilt...More to come as I work through this idea.

I hope you have a productive and creative weekend! 

Aaaaanyway, that's it from the Robertson household.





Holidays

I don't know about you, but my holidays are overtaking my desire to blog.  I have been gone for a week exploring the world from the view point of a 4 and 2 year old and I can tell you that I am exhilerated and also tired! 

 Boo also enjoyed himself as you can see.  Classic labradoodle in action:

I got home Friday afternoon, in time to prepare for the BAMQG July meeting.   We had agreed to bring in our blocks for the QuiltCon block challenge, as well as

bring in our blocks for the BAM block challenge.  Here's a quick peek at both:

I have been working on my improv projects, based on Gwen Marston's work.  I took the blocks I said I didn't know what I would do with, and here is my top:

I am very creatively excited about this top - every block was a joy to make.  I spent some time making them cohesive in their improv-ness. 
I hope that you also like the top.   Rumor has it, I will quilt it myself.  (Bear in mind I usually quilt-by-checkbook)   More to follow...

Thanks for following my blog when you can - I so appreciate it. 

Aaaaaanyway, that's it from the Robertson household.