Quilt Labels

My mom is an avid quilter, and she makes quilts for everyone in the family. Whenever she completes a quilt, she signs the back with a special marker so that we will remember the year the quilt was made. For Mother’s Day this year I decided to make her a basket full of quilting supplies, and the best part of the gift was the special quilt labels I had made for her.

I found a place online where I could order personalized quilt labels for my mom. The labels are small and made of cloth, and decorated with a border and her name. In the middle there is a blank spot where she can write a message to the quilt recipient using the cloth pens that are supposed to hold up under washing. Unfortunately, there is no way to completely assure that the ink will not fade over the years, but the label will remain forever.

I still have the first quilt my mom ever made me, but through the years, and hundreds of washings, the inscribed message has faded and now you can barely make out her signature. If she had sewn quilt labels into her quilts back then, I would still be able to see who made the quilt. I don’t need this information, obviously, because I know that my mom made it, but it would be nice to have it inscribed with something more permanent than ink, especially since it is an item that goes through the washer a lot. And that’s the biggest problem with my mom. She insists that her quilts are made to be used like you would a normal blanket. She would be upset if she made them only to have them folded up and stored away like something precious. But if you use something a lot, it will get dirty and need to be cleaned, and so her quilts endure a lot of wear and tear.

This summer my mom made a quilt for my son, and it is the first one that she has had a chance to sign using her new quilt labels. I love that my son can keep his quilt as a keepsake, and even once my mom is gone, he can look at the quilt labels on any of the quilts she makes for him while he’s young and always know that she made them especially for him.