how to make fabric labels

I really love adding labels to everything I make; they add such a professional finish to my projects! I recently put together a tutorial for Spoonflower that walks you through how to make your own personalized fabric labels, which can feature either your logo or a favorite phrase. Pop on over to the Spoonflower blog for step-by-step instructions and more photos.

And in case you don't feel like designing your own, I also designed a simple "Handmade with Love" label (pictured above), which you can print out and use for your own projects. Happy labeling!

sachets + a friday link round-up

For gift giving this past Christmas, I made a pile of lavender flower sachets (pictured above) using this excellent Purl Bee tutorial. Purl Soho carries the prettiest stacks of wool felt, and I opted to use the Spice colorway for my sachets. The final product was super fragrant and really beautiful; I highly recommend the tutorial!

What are your plans for the weekend? I'm hoping to sew (of course!) and fit in a couple of runs. In the meantime, here a few of my favorite things from around the web lately to take you into the weekend:

Season Evans makes stunning quilts, and this spotlight on her work is killer.

Etsy also did a feature on another fellow quilter, Btaylor Quilts.

My friend Kait bought a fabric shop!

Umbrella Prints launched their new Flowers Collection, and the color palette is spot on. (Pieces from their past collections can still be found in the Salty Oat shop.)

Apartment Therapy has some great tips on how to clean quilts.

Lee over at May Chappell is hosting a fun block swap featuring Carolyn Friedlander's new Outhouse quilt pattern; I've already signed up!

This video of a putter (a scissor maker) at work is so cool.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!

playing with color

Happy New Year, dear readers! I hope 2015 is off to a great start for all of you!

Over a year ago, I discovered Sarah Waterhouse's screen-printed fabrics and fell in love. I quickly decided that I wanted to stock her designs in my shop, and selected a number of prints from her Geometrics collection to carry. Though her organic fabrics are a heavier weight---perfect for upholstery, tote bags, pillows, and zipper pouches---they actually work quite beautifully in quilts, as I discovered while working on this improv wall quilt.

I started simply with small swatches of each of the fabrics in the line. I outlined each print with a white border, and then built up blocks using solids which coordinated with each of the prints. Each block was pieced improvisationally, so no two are alike in size or layout. I used various shades of white for the surrounding background, and anchored the blocks to a center horizontal line.

For the backing, I chose a quirky Japanese print I've had in my stash for years, which had most of the colors featured in the top. I quilted it with a grid of diamonds in white thread and bound the quilt with an orange-red crosshatch print.

This piece came together organically, and I really fell in love with the results. I hope to do more piecing of this type; it's fun to go into a project with no set plan! This quilt is now listed for sale in my Etsy shop, and you can find Sarah's prints there as well, to use in your own crafty projects.

Photos by Caroline Okun.