The Insomniac's Delight-Label Quilt

Have you ever seen a label quilt?  Do you even know what it is?  I didn't until my mom started creating.

It's the coolest quilt ever!  Look close for some amazing, unique labels.

My mom has created hundreds and hundreds of custom quilts over the years.  And I have been the happy recipient of many of them, along with other members of my family.    

She is an accomplished quilter unlike me who can tie a quilt...if I have help.  My mom's hands are always busy doing something.  She thinks TV programs are boring unless she has a quilt in her hand, and then they are just tolerable.

I'm not sure if the label quilt was her idea or something she saw and said, "I can do that!"  And she usually can.

Like the tag says, she started gathering labels in 1996.  She would remove labels from clothing, shoes, packaging materials, flour bags...anything with a fabric label.  She would then cut the label carefully out of the article and place it in an envelope for safe keeping.  

They are from all over the world.  From her travels and anyone else that wanted to give up their label.  After a time she had several people gathering for her.  They would bring her over handfuls of labels they had saved for her.

  

Once she felt she had enough labels she started creating the quilt square by square.  Over the years she continued creating the squares and by 1998 she had enough squares to make a very large quilt.

The completed label quilt hung in her entryway for years and as people would enter they would stand at the quilt (in awe) for what seemed a very long time.  Many of the labels had stories attached to them..."We picked up that label from..."  kind of like the touristy tea cups you collect from different countries.   

Since that first label quilt was created, several more have been made and given to my sisters.  I'm thinking I will hold out for the original.

Many of the clothing companies now do not have labels, instead they have the company names "stamped" in their products.  But every once in awhile we come across a really great one.  It goes into the envelope, waiting to be sewn on the next square, for the next label quilt.

Go check your closet...