Day 140: A Reason to Label It

First, today's granny. She's brown and beautiful! Like me. Just kidding.

When we got married Andrew's grandmother gave us a beautiful handmade quilt. From what I understand she gave one to each one of her grandchildren when they got married.  Then when we all started having children, Gigi made one for each of her great grandchildren.  Because of this and all the things she made, when she passed away she wasn't totally gone. We are surrounded by her paintings, her writing and literally wrapped in her blankets.  A part of her is here with us, a special part, because she loved to make things.

One of my favorite things about her blankets is that she hand labeled each and every one

I make sure to point this out to the kids, "see your great grandmother, Lee Davidson, made this the year that Eloise was born." I hope they will then point it out to their kids, and so on, and so on. I hope we never forget who made these quilts.

I love the simplicity of her label and I've tried to replicate it, but it is not as easy as it looks! I'll spare you pictures of my attempts. Ultimately, I took the easy way out and searched Etsy for custom labels. There are a lot of varieties to choose from, but I settled on Mountain Street Arts, and placed an order.

I was thrilled when they arrived. Aren't they beautiful? I love the little crochet hook and yarn, and more importantly, they are thick and well made. I would definitely order them again. I actually want to order more in a smaller size because these would be too big for something like a hat or a cowl.

I also got these care tags as a reminder to hand wash handmade gifts. Hey, that almost sounds like an actual saying - hand wash handmade!

So, I implore you to label all the handmade treasure you make, so that even if it end ups being sold at Goodwill, the person paying 25 cents for it know that you made it.