Friday, March 12, 2010

"Label Me" Quilt

I have been saving labels from clothing for years now.   They are from shirts, jeans, dresses, and ties.  I have often thought they would make a nice quilt, using them like the old cigar silks were used.  It took the announcement of this quilt contest to finally push me to make the quilt.  Their theme is “New from Old” and the inspiration statement spoke of my use of the labels as the cigar silks had been used:
Imagine antique quilt blocks, trims, color palettes, and stitches translated and transformed by state-of-the-art sewing machines, vibrant modern fabrics, and new techniques by the innovative quiltmakers of today.
I used a fusible stabilizer to arrange the labels, hold them in place for stitching, and to align the vertical strips.  The labels are used in form the  “coins” while I used silk ribbons from bow ties for the vertical black strips.  The quilt is machine pieced and quilted.  It is 16 in square.
Here is a closer photo to show some of the labels in better detail.

It is a quilt I’m not sure I want to give up, so as a trial run I have put it up for sale on Etsy. If it doesn’t sale by the contest’s entry date, then I will enter it in the contest.

4 comments:

Jabulani said...

This is lovely; what an unusual idea. And I loved the flag quilt too. I'm going to start saving you labels and ribbons! Will swap you for cheese popcorn ... ;)

Chrysalis said...

I was thinking that too, what a cool idea! You are so talented.

agent99 said...

Gorgeous, unique work. Reminds me of the project I started with my ex-husband's clothes he left. When it's done, I plan to donate it to Habitat for Humanity.

BrainDame said...

Very cool look