A Thought About Labels/Labeling

A retired friend of mine fills in at the high school if there's an emergency sort of need. One day she was promised the class would be easy; for the most part she was write to a test on the blackboard, call the roll and prevent mayhem. Imagine her surprise when the graduating seniors in the class could not read cursive. I've been signing most of my quilts in cursive with the sewing machine and thought I was rather clever. Maybe not. Cursive may be going the way of manual typewriters. Either I'm going to have to learn to use my embroidery machine or perhaps I could learn to Tweet? Twitter? @#$! you know. Polly

"Roberta" I certainly don't disagree with you. It would be great if we were all

On my last trial, I had two seating charts to fill out, one for me, one for my judge. They were being filled out "on the fly" as I called names off of the random juror roster. Eighteen people, eighteen names. So I did them in cursive, in blue fine point pen. At the break my judge said he couldn't read all the names. I didn't want to tell him it was my protest for him speeding along not giving me enough time to write everything out clearly ;)

G> A retired friend of mine fills in at the high school if there's an emerge= ncy

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Sometimes new judges must be gently reminded that they can not function without consideration of their clerks, reporters and bailiffs. The older ones know and respect that. Gently remind him that he can have: fast, legible or accurate. All three will take a little longer. Polly

"Ginger in CA" A retired friend of mine fills in at the high school if there's an

True -- as a late in life new teacher, my students were a bit confounded by my cursive. But it never occurred to me that some people couldn't read my cursive on my quilts. But -- you gotta do cursive if yur free motioning it -- just wouldn't look as good in block letters with little "joiners" between the letters. Oh well. If something does get deemed a "masterpiece" far in the future, hopefully textile curators and appraisers will be trained in cursive as an arcane piece of judging historical artifacts.

susan k

Hi Roberta,

Not putting your name on everything does NOT disqualify you as a creative artist, but neither does it recognize you.

Where do you draw the line? Where do any artists, writers, composers, etc. draw the line? Anywhere they like; anywhere they want a work recognized as being theirs/coming from their heart, soul, & mind; blood, sweat, & tears.

Doc

g/wiki/Trademark

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Susan,

When machines embroider block letters, they leave small joiners as well; you just snip them off afterward.

Et. al,

Embroidery machines also do cursive ("script") fonts; sometimes we use them - sometimes not - depending on what looks best.

Legibility can have as much to do with size and a particular font - some just aren't legible the smaller they are.

HOW the label is done, or how much information/detail is included is secondary to my suggestion in this thread. Historically, some artists'/craftsmens' "label" consisted only of a mark (some because they could read/write to sign their names), hence, the "trade mark" - just a symbol of some kind - even incorporated into their work - was enough to identify it as theirs, each trade mark being as unique as a signature.

Some of you probably collect, or know about, Hummels, and know that they can be (roughly) dated by the different "bees" used to identify them....

Doc

I like this idea. Inigo Jones, the famous wood-carver, included a peapod in every one of his works. There is a famous North Yorkshire furniture maker called Robert Thompson who has a mouse on all his pieces.

Suggestions, please... Nothing twee...

Nel (GQ)

He was a woodcarver too?

("My name is Inigo Jones. You killed my Ark in the Temple of Doom during the Last Crusade -- Prepare to die!")

How simple/complex do you want to go? Do you want it related to Carlyle, or Sartor Resartus, or tailors? Looking at the associated woodcut illustration, I see a satyr (or faun

- Pan, Puck), pan flute, bell, pawnbroker's 3 spheres/coins, some type of leaf.... (jes spitballin' here...)

Something you would embroider? (If so, by hand or machine?) Some shape, pattern, or block you would work in (a trademark quilt block)? A crown or crown & (your favorite) gadget? (GQ) crown over needle & thread? "Nel Regina" A crown over the initials "NR" See:

Doc

I made a logo for Kate as part of the wedding dress deal, but she hasn't used it yet, AFAIK. Actually, I made two for her: A welsh witch on a pair of oldfashioned sewing scissors and a welsh hat with scissors and a sewing machine. I could design one for you, too, but I don't know how you could incorporate it into your quilts...

U.

Thank you, that would be lovely. I love the idea of Welsh hat and crossed scissors! Like a skull and crossbones. Considering I do Welsh Wholecloth designs, that would be appropriate to me, too!

I am thinking along the lines of something either around or contained within a heart shape. I have always been rather squeemish of hearts as a shape to use on anything but it seems I'm now stuck with them. A while since, I wanted to put 'charms' on all my stuff for when I take them to school, classes, hospital and so on. The British Heart Foundation brought out a set of trolley dollies, and before you could say, "Jack Robunson" I had a few, all different, hanging from my scissors, key rings and pencil cases. So the heart kinda stuck without my noticing. Now I have a lovely leather Osprey one on my Dump Bag and everything I carry seems to have one somewhere.

So how about a heart and crossed scissors with the dedication initials in the centre of the heart and my initials either side of the cross and the date at the bottom... goes to draw...

YES! That works. I'll post a link when I've got it sorted. I can make it really little, and maybe have some labels made up, just to add the date and initials later. OooH! This is exciting, and can be retrofitted. I can add a label to the edge, caught in the binding or stitch one into the design somewhere. Quite unobtrsive and definitively mine.!

Thanks, everybody. Nel (Gadget Quuen)

Oh my, so many things to respond to .... where to start?

Nel -- I highlighted 'trolley dollies' in your post and had Google look it up. Oops! I think you meant trolley doilies. Maybe? Just to be certain, have a go at Googling 'trolley dollies' -- but do so gingerly if you have a faint heart!

Ursula -- I'd love to have you design a signature for me. What would you charge? I'd want something incorporating a sun burst, sort of elegant, that I could embroider on my work.

Doc -- I agree with you here about labeling everything. Well, maybe not the practice FM stuff that you bind and use for hot pads because you hate to throw away anything with batting in the middle. But everything else. And I've seen the work of people in this newsgroup and I know that Roberta and Nel both do work that deserves to be identified and remembered.

Polly -- Cursive is dying. I read recently that cursive will no longer be taught in elementary school. So much work is now done on keyboard, and keyboard training starts in kindergarten now. Children have no need of cursive, it takes up valuable classroom time that could be used for drilling repetitive test questions and answers. So cursive is going the way of Latin grammar and memorizing and reciting poetry. Sigh.

Sunny

Ooops! language splatters the dust again! (BG) I mean those tokens that represent (in UK) =A31 in Europe 1 Euro and I expect there is something stateside equivalent in size. In Canada it is the $.

I think, on mature reflection, they may be referred to (safely) as trolley TOKENS. Apparently they are the IN thing to give away as Weddding favours now... but I digress.

Cursive handwriting... climbs quietly onto hobby horse and aims for sunset... Here in the UK it is required at 11 and then ignored from then on in. This is a shame, because as soon as the pupils hit secondary school they get the idea that they can pretty well forget all the discipline and energy they acquired at primary school, and they begin this rebellion with Presentation (unless the school's policy is very strict). Hearts and bubbles appear on girls' work and the boys start to print in capitals. pubity! Unless this is discouraged vehemently it lapses into 'anything goes' and the art and speed (which is more important) drops off significantly. It is considered (I forget the research, but Google anything Dyslexia related) that spelling is reinforced through cursive word shape (though I expect it could be argued that typing patterns could compare with the phonological loop). STOP! I could bore as an Olympic Sport on this subject... STOP ME!

And let's not even go with text language and email...

Dismounts and slinks off into the undergrowth mumbling incoherently...

"Now, back to hearts and crossed scissors" she says brightening!

Nel (GQ) (Founder member of "Pedants Anonymous")

Maybe US residents are a bit mystified over trolley tokens too :-) Dear ones, a trolley = shopping cart. In most of Europe and its associated isles, these are linked with chains in long rows to keep them from filling the parking lot, and you need to put a coin in the holder to release one. Then you return it to the chain and get your coin back. Most of us carry around a token of some sort, so we don't spend it and have nothing for the trolley.

I have several, mostly pr>Ooops! language splatters the dust again! (BG) I mean those tokens

Wow, Roberta! Here in the USA, we just find shopping carts inside the store (or right outside) in some sort of jumble that requires a torn rotator cuff to unjumble. Then you push it around the store, check out and put your bags back into the cart. Then you push it to your car, unload the cart, and then aim it away from your OWN car and give it a good push with the fervent hope that by the time it crashes into somebody else's car that you have already backed out and driven far enough down the parking aisle that you can shrug good-naturedly when the poor sod with the new ding on his/her car shakes their fist at you.

Oh, sometimes we allow old people, young girls with multiple babies and drug addicts to take the shopping cart far from the store and THEN give it a good shove -- preferably out into moving traffic but sometimes just into the curb where it hinders bicycle riders, dog walkers, runners and old ladies trying to turn into a store parking lot.

As you can see, we here in the USA have truly civilized the art of shopping carts. :)

Sunny

Ha Ha!

Yes, now, let me introduce to the British Bedstead Men:

Nel (GQ)

As I'm usually the driver for 3 other ladies who don't drive, when we go any distance I find little offerings of £1 in the between seat tray of my car, I put them straight in my dashboard coin holder so I am never without a coin for the trolley - the only time I tried a token it didn't work! I never see the £1s arrive - the fairies?

I thought 'Trolley-dollies' were female flight attendants - perhaps of the stereotypical variety! Trolley because they push the refreshment trolley and dolly because .... and it rhymes!

Sally at the Seaside ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~uk

Roberta wrote: