I am a bad, bad quilter…….I have never labeled a quilt. I have made a bunch of quilts in the last 10 years, but they have all been unlabeled. Now that I actually write that out….I am not sure why I haven’t. I suppose it’s laziness, or the thought that the simple quilts that I make won’t outlast me. But I have recently seen the light.
I have a very favorite, treasured quilt….I didn’t make it. It’s not even quilted. But it is always on my bed and it will be mine until the day I die.
I don’t like the colors, or the fabric.
And it’s a little ironic that I love a quilt that isn’t even quilted!
What makes this quilt so special to me is the memories I have of it. Every time I would go to Grandpa’s house, I would cuddle underneath this quilt. It is so cuddly and soft! When Grandpa passed away, I was able to bring it home. It had brought me so much comfort in the years since he has been gone.
I thought that Grandpa bought this quilt at a thrift store….I thought for sure he told me that. But just last year, when we talking about this quilt, my husband said that he thought that his aunt had made it. I was taken aback. He has been gone for only 4 years but, already, we weren’t sure about this quilt or where it came from. If it had a label, we would know.
This realization made me think about the other quilts I have that are from Grandpa, all of which are unlabeled. Like this quilt, which is also on my bed,
I know that this quilt is from one of the family reunions, and it has family member’s names on it. It even has a block that says what year it was made.
But I don’t know who made it.
This drives home the point that I really need to take out all of grandpa’s old quilts and start labeling them. I don’t want the memories I have of them to pass away with me.
For instance, when my kids pull out this quilt:
I want them to know that this was the last quilt that Grandpa ever made. I want to tell them about how he would buy any tie he saw at a garage sale. And about how he insisted on yellow thread for the decorative stitches. I want to remind them that they were there when I gave it to him in his hospital room after I had finished quilting it. He weakly joked with me that he thought it was the craziest crazy quilt he ever saw. I want to make sure that they know that even though he never got to use his special quilt, every time they slept under it they were being hugged by Grandpa.
Perhaps that’s why I haven’t ever got around to labeling quilts, I didn’t realize the main point. Labels aren’t for us, we know all about the quilts that we make. Labels are for the people that come after us. So that they can remember, many years from now.
Here is a great tutorial on how to make a nice printed label.
Quilt Fearlessly!
