Quilt Alliance is on a mission to get all quilters to label their quilts. According to a survey that they cite, only 58% of quilters regularly label their quilts. They currently have a pledge form you can fill out where you can pledge to label your own quilts.
This has been an issue near and dear to my heart. In 1999 I had a quilt that went missing during shipment. Thankfully, it was fully labeled and my quilt was returned to me two months later. As a result of that experience, I started the Lost Quilt Come Home website. I have a two-fold purpose for this site. One is to give information about lost and stolen quilts. The other purpose is to give information about protecting quilts. One of the articles I have available on the Lost Quilt site is about how to label quilts. After all these years of posting missing quilts, I would say that a very large percentage of quilts that are missing did not have a label either.
Because of my own interest in quilt making, along with the experience gained through the Lost Quilt website, in 2013 I wrote an article for Machine Quilting Magazine. That article, “Last but not Least — Label your Quilt“, is now available for free, in conjunction with Quilt Alliance’s pledge drive.
I hope you join the efforts to preserve our quilt making heritage. Along with that, I encourage you to document your quilt, too. I have a free quilt documentation form that can help you document your quilts. Please feel free to make copies of this form and distribute it to your fellow quilters as well.
