Humans like names. We name everything. Names do a whole lot of things: they help us categorize information, they help us remember information. All kinds of handy things. Quilting is no different. Units have names: half square triangles, flying geese, hourglass, square in a square. Blocks have names: Shoo-Fly, Broken Dishes, Log Cabin. Some of these names have been around for over 100 years, some are new. When someone designs a quilt, the pattern gets a name. Older patterns were often named after the main blocks in the quilt: Log Cabin Quilt or Tumbling Blocks quilt. There are also pattern names that have been around for ages – think Irish Chain Quilts or Trip around the world quilts

For a designer of quilts a new pattern needs to have a new name. It needs to be something that catches the eye of a quilter who is browsing. It would be nice if it is easy to remember so that when telling someone else about the pattern, a quilter can easily repeat the name to others. The best name I have ever come up with for my patterns is Fat Quarter Fabulous. I love alliteration anyway, and that just hits all the marks in my view. If I’m just making a quilt to use around the house, I can attach one of my dressmaking labels. At least that gets my name on the quilt in a more permanent fashion.

That being said, when a quilter is making a quilt and putting it in a show, one of the things always requested is the name of the quilt. The name of the pattern is requested somewhere else, this is the name you are giving your work of art that is a derivative of the quilt pattern. This trips me up every single time. I’d like the name to be catchy. I’d like the name to in some way, refer to the name of the pattern, or at least hint at it. I’d like the name to be short enough to fit on the label on the quilt and in the paperwork that I am sending in with the quilt. I will sit for hours staring at my quilt and the pattern and the form trying to come up with the perfect name. I see them all the time at shows: quilts with names that just fit the quilt perfectly and I wonder how they came up with that name? I struggle with this so much that I have stopped entering quilts in shows. Ok so honestly it’s not only just this reason, there are a few others, but this is a big part of it for me.

I have made the joke that I’m just going to start numbering my quilts. I will start with 1000 (I mean who really wants to start with 1, it would take 30 years to get up to a decent number). Heck I might even date code them so it has the completion year in the name. If I had kept track of when I started things I could include the full duration in the name: I give you 1032:1999100120191031. Yea that looks pretty impressive. It would be very straight forward to name every quilt, and the name would carry a lot of information. If I wanted to personalize it, I could add my last name or even my initials: 1032mlw:1999100120191031. I’m liking this even more. It would be pretty unique too – I haven’t seen anyone do this, and it would give me a lot of information for my own use for each quilt. I won’t make it retroactive, don’t want to have to go back and remake labels but going forward I like this plan.