Meringue {Shipping to QuiltCon}

Happy New Year! I hope that you have had a nice entry into 2023. To help facilitate a sense of ease for myself, I took last week pretty slowly.

Speaking of easing into 2023, there were a lot of linkups to the #2023PlanningParty on the last few days of the year. I’ve extended the length of the link up party to end on Wednesday, January 4th, at 11:55pm Pacific. So you still have time to join us or go back and catch up with everyone who has linked up recently.

One of my favorite things to do is hand bind quilts, and while I didn’t have any of that work that needed to be done last week, I did have a quilt that needed preparation to be shipped off to show at QuiltCon.

Hanging Sleeve, Label, and Label Cover

I started by making the hanging sleeve tube, label, and label cover. I have always used Jacquie Gering’s Hanging Sleeve Tutorial as a reference when I need it.

Several years ago, I purchased 2 yards of 2 different grid prints that I love to use for my labels (I still have lots of both prints left so I should be good for years to come). It’s so handy to have the reference lines for writing the information onto my labels!

To make my labels, I cut a 5″ x 10″ rectangle. I fold the rectangle in half with right sides together, and I stitch around the 3 raw edges, leaving a 3″ opening. Then I carefully clip the corners and turn the label right side out. I press the corner and seams out as best I can and then press the label to set the shape. To complete, I topstitch around the edge of the label to secure the opening. Because I used contrasting thread this time (I didn’t feel like changing out my matching thread from the hanging sleeve and label cover), the top stitching should be nicely visible in the photo above.

To make the required label cover, I follow the same method as the label itself, but I start with a 6″ x 12″ rectangle. That way, I make sure my label cover is slightly larger than my label. And because there are no handy grid lines on my solid label cover, I simply lined up an acrylic quilting ruler with the bottom edge of the label and used the top edge of the ruler as a straight line reference while I wrote on the label cover.

Meringue – Ready to Ship to QuiltCon

After the label, label cover, and hanging sleeve were made, I spent a lovely afternoon hand stitching the label and hanging sleeve in place while listening to podcasts. Because the label cover is meant to be temporary, I used pin basting pins to secure it in place over top of the label. Meringue is now packed up and on it’s way to QuiltCon judging. I hope it enjoys its travels, and if you happen to see Meringue on display at QuiltCon in Atlanta in February, be sure to say hello to it for me!