Rediiscovery

I'm making a baby quilt for a co-worker. While trying to figure out the label for it I rediscovered some fun things that I don't use very often:

• Quilt Label Collective cd
• June Tailor printable iron-on label fabric
• Sulky KK2000 temporary spray adhesive
• Gingher pinking shears

How the heck did I use all of these things when making a quilt label? Well, let me tell ya...

First I design my label in Photoshop. I found the basic label design I wanted for this one on my Quilt Label Collective cd. Some really great black and white line drawings ranging from cute to classy. My favorite place to start when making my quilt labels. I use a lot of layers in order to get the colors and text the way I want it. Many layers makes it easier to move, add, and remove items without disturbing other things.

Once I've got the design made, colored, and sized the way I want it, I print it in color to see if I like it. At this point I can still make tweaks and changes or just plain start over with something else entirely if I don't like what's printed and not waste the expensive iron-on stuff.

Once it's "perfected" (as if anything I do is even remotely close to perfect) and I have a clean print out, I dig out the printable iron-on label fabric and cut a rectangle approx an inch to inch and a half larger in both length and width than the label design. For example, the label I've been working on tonight is 3 1/2 inches by approx 2 1/4 inches. The iron-on label fabric rectangle I cut was about 4 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches.

My next step is to spray the back of the rectangle I just cut and center it horizontally and vertically over the printed label design, making sure it's firmly attached to the paper.

Then I put the paper into the paper tray making sure it's going to print right side up exactly where it printed before. And go back to the laptop and hit Print.

Once it's come out of the printer (and it looks just how I want it to), I carefully peel the iron-on fabric off of the paper. I then grab my trusty Gingher pinking shears and cut along all 4 edges of the label approx half an inch or so outside of the design.

From there it's follow the directions on the iron-on fabric package to affix it to the quilt and we're done.

As I didn't take pictures of the different steps, I'll have to remember to when I do more labels and add the pictures later.

I really like the way this label came out. And it was a nice way to do a little creative de-stressing after a crazy day at work.

-Biird-