Sewing on labels

I took the "be still" quilt to Road to CA, to get it appraised. This particular appraiser gave me information that other appraisers had not shared before. I'd rushed to finish the quilt, and hadn't yet labeled or blocked it. She said, "Sorry. But I have to appraise it exactly as I see it." hmmm. Maybe that explains a couple of unexpectedly low appraisals...I was in such a rush to get the quilts appraised, I hadn't taken the time to finish getting them in show condition. I'll know better next time.

After her lack of label comment, I decided that I really need to keep my quilt labels current, so I spent yesterday making labels. As you can tell by the picture above, I label each venue my quilts have visited. That way, the quilt can tell its own story of its travels, and I don't have to try to remember them. :)


Here is the label that I made for the "be still" quilt. I've also got a second label, with my name, address and phone number. For any quilt that gets sent to a show, that name & address label is an absolute MUST, especially if you are shipping the quilt. If it falls out of its box, you want to have a way for them to know who to send it to, right? Right!

When I was taking pictures of the labels, another of my works in progress caught my eye. This one has been most frustrating. I've done the lettering in the border with Tsukineko inks, but decided that the darkest blotches in the fabric interfere with the ability to read the words. I got the grand idea to lighten the background with paint. bad idea. It looks glaringly bad to me, and I'm now trying to come up with a solution. The most obvious is to find more fabric and redo it. But I've already sunk over 20 hours into this border, and I'm not eager to start over and do another 20. But I'm planning to hand quilt this one, and it does seem that remaking the borders is probably my best bet.

I did find fabric that would be PERFECT for this border. Unfortunately it was a cherrywood gradation fabric that is ONLY available in fat quarters. I need at least 1 1/2 yards. I suppose I will keep on looking. The solution is out there, it's just waiting for me to stumble upon it.

For now, I've got labels to sew and other quilts to finish, so it's not like there's nothing to do...

I'd best get to it!!