Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Permanent ink on quilts


Writing on your quilt is like giving it a tattoo.

Traditional Baltimore Album quilts had copper plate calligraphy on them. There is a cool video on you tube (short clip) that gives you an idea of how the real artists make these beautiful letters.

I did a pseudo-wanna-be version of this that works on fabric w/ an example of how to do calligraphy on fabric in an earlier post.

The above is a little bag I made for Zegi who won the give away contest.

First, I took some fabric and wrote a letter to my coming-soon baby boy on it, using my own 'copperplate calligraphy' and a pigma pen.

Then I made it into a little bag, place some adorable taupe-blue dots on there, and used a clover zipper (the ONLY kind of zipper to use on bags!!).

The letter says:


May you have health and love in your life; true friends, and passion. Take comfort in the blessing of family. Find joy in every day and appreciate the beauty of nature. Work hard and find pleasure in learning. You are an amazing gift to the world.



So this is my wish, for my yet to be born son, and to all of you as well since these are the things I find to be the most rewarding in my own life.

This technique of writing not only makes for a very interesting treatment on fabric in general, but is perfect for making quilt labels too. (Label example from earlier post).

9 comments:

jovaliquilts said...

Thanks for all the writing tips! Do you stabilize the fabric in some way before writing on it? I have written on fabric with pigma pens but the fabric keeps pulling, even with a sheet of freezer paper on it.

Jan said...

Thanks for the recap. I do remember your previous post on the topic.
Lovely little pouch!

Oiyi said...

Wow, I love your calligraphy! Do you need to heat set the writing with an iron? Or is it permanent on it's own and won't wash out?

Kates said...

Ahhh that bag is gorgeous! I love it. =]

Remember how my mom was supposed to make me a quilt when I graduated high school (two years ago)? I don't think I have a lovely hand made quilt now. Yeah. Weak. You should be my mommy, you would have actually made one. =P

Zegi said...

OMG are you sure you want to give that away!? The little poem almost made me cry. I'd like to hear too if there is something you do to stabilize it. Maybe water soluble stabilizer?

Chara Michele said...

This little bag is just amazing! So lovely!

Sarah said...

What a beautiful thing to write. I love the zip you've used - additions like that make it look very professional.

Elizabeth said...

This is gorgeous! I would love to make a whole quilt like this. The lettering is stunning and adds such interesting visual detail (and with a message - how cool!). Like others, I have questions about how you do this -- how do you know how to write the letters (where to do loopy things etc.)? Do you have a calligraphy book that you copy from? Did you write the message in a circle on the fabric? There is an eyecatching curve to the words. Amazing.

Unknown said...

oh how adorable...
soon to be mother of two very loved boys... young men... men.