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| Fabric tag! |
What you need:
- Scrap fabric with batting, at least 3''x5'' in length. If you have a bigger piece, don't cut it smaller, we will quilt the 1 piece of fabric & batting and a larger size is less fiddly to do this on
- Piece of fabric in a lighter color that will be the 'message' side.
- Scissors, pencil for marking, pins.
- Button-hole making skills.
I would say that you need some basic sewing skills- quilting, top stitching, and making a button hole. In reality, you're making a tag and it doesn't need to be perfect. I'm a beginner quilter and I managed to make a half-decent one!
Tag Tutorial
1. Quilt your scrap fabric- I had this laying around from the end of my baby quilt. I quilted the 1 piece of fabric and batting together using diagonal lines, but you could try free-motion quilting if you're feeling adventurous.
The piece I used was approx 7''x 6'' but it doesn't matter because you'll trim it down after this step.
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| Scraps of fabric & batting from my quilt |
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| I quilted the top in diagonal lines... |
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| ...or try free-motion quilting and follow along with the fabric pattern! |
2. Trim your quilted piece to 3''x 5''. Cut your lighter fabric to have the same dimensions.
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| Neutral fabric on the left, quilted fabric on the right. |
3. Now take a pencil and mark two diagonal lines so we can get the diagonal shape at the top of the tag. My picture shows that I used my 45 degree lines on my cutting mat and I used those to make the tag top symmetric. Do not cut these lines yet.
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| I drew on two diagonal lines to make the top of the tag. |
4. Place the two pieces of fabric right-sides together, pin. We are leaving the bottom open so the tag can be turned inside out after. Starting in the bottom corner, use a 1/8'' seam and sew up and around to the other side, leaving the bottom open. I pretended the diagonal lines I drew at the top were the edges, so I sewed inside of it. It's not a big deal if you sew on top of the lines, we're cutting the excess off anyways.
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| Leave the bottom of the tag open. Use ~1/8 inch seam and sew to the other bottom corner, leaving the bottom open (so it can be turned inside out after). |
5. Now cut the corners off the ends off the tag. Now is a good time to assess if this looks symmetrical. If not, just run a couple of stitches on one of the sides to even it up.
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| This is what your tag should look like. See the bottom is open. Sorry I didn't think what color of thread I was using on this step! |
6. Turn the tag right-side out. Fold the fabric in on the bottom, pin and steam.
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| Fold up the bottom edges so the raw ends are inside the tag. I turned it in approx 1/4''. |
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| Front view, before sewing. It's looking like a tag now. |
7. Close up the bottom edge with ~1/8'' top stitch, and continue around the entire tag. This was a little tricky to do, but just use a consistent distance around the entire tag, pivotting at the corners & continuing to the end. Backstitch to secure.
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| See my tag, this is the bottom corner. |
8. Create a button hole at the top, so a ribbon can feed through. Make sure you line up the centre of the buttonhole to the centre of the tag!
I have an automatic buttonhole feature on my machine. I simply put the foot on, choose my width of buttonhole, and push the pedal. It creates the buttonhole in 1 continuous process and I watch in amazement :)
I played around with some parameters and decided '10' works for me... your machine will be different so I would suggest practicing on a scrap piece of fabric to see how you want your button hole.
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| My buttonhole foot. |
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| Husqvarna Sapphire 835 buttonhole parameters |
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| I tested two sizes, 16 and 10. I prefer 10. I then marked on my tag where I needed the needle to start to create the buttonhole. |
9. You're done! Write a message, I used a regular ball-point pen because I can't imagine anyone would actually wash this tag. Whatever pen you use, TEST IT on a scrap piece of fabric before you write on your tag so you can make sure the ink doesn't bleed!!
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| Finished result. Tie a ribbon through this and write a message! |
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| Tag from the baby quilt that I made last week... blogged here |
Thanks for reading! If you have any questions just leave a comment below and I will do my best to clarify things.
~knittypie
