Documenting Your Quilts

My method of documenting my work.
 

While attending the AQSG Seminar this past year, some ladies saw my Finished Quilts Notebook and told me that I should blog about it.  I keep scrapbooking notebooks for both my design ideas and my finished quilts.  When some of your quilts finish at about 7.5" square, you are not going to be able to fit much of a label on them.  I use the same label for all my quilts:


 

 

This is a piece of vintage muslin that is stamped. I will add my name and the year the quilt is finished and then needle turn applique it onto the back of my quilt.  It is kept in my Finished Quilt Notebook.

This notebook contains plastic sleeve protectors with forms in it.  For a copy of this form, click on the upper right corner under Form #2 and you may print it out.  If it is something you think you might really like, right click and save it. 

 

Above is an example of what I keep in my sleeves.  The form shown is an older version, the one you are getting is a little prettier.  The sleeves contain a photo of the finished quilt and the filled out form.  It may also contain photos of whatever inspired it and samples of the fabrics.  Sometimes the pattern is put in there.  I don't have any hard and fast rules for this, other than the photo and the form.  Sometimes I have a sample block or sometimes fabrics that got changed for whatever reason. 



 



In my Quilts Designs and Ideas Notebook, I have a different form and some colored pencils.  (You never know when inspiration will hit!) I keep some graph paper notecards with common shape cut outs so that I can audition fabric quickly.  For instance I can lay a 1/2" triangle cut out over a piece of fabric and see if that fabric will work. This is just s quick way to determine if I am on the right track or if it is back to the drawing board.  The form is primarily to make some organized notes on my history quilt books and to make  notes of quilts I liked, what page they were on, and what I specifically liked about them.  Click on Form #1 in the upper right hand corner and you can have a copy of it.  This notebook also has clear plastic sheet protectors so that I can keep things handy.  Although it contains a color wheel (because Gerald Roy once told me I should have one) it seldom gets used.  Since my goal is to make miniatures that look like antique quilts, I just go with what worked for quilters in the years before us. There are reasons we like quilts, even if we don't always know why. A lot of times it is simply the color combo that appeals to us.



 

This notebook also may contain sketches, EQ drawings, magazine clippings, you name it.  Whatever will fit and whatever inspires.

Well, that's about it for now.  I hope this will help you keep your thoughts and quilts organized.

Till next time...........

Sheila