Making Soft Cotton Labels..

For months and months I have been wanting some labels to sew into my hats. I didn't want just any labels though.. I wanted soft, off-white good quality cotton with a simple design.  Which wouldn't of been difficult to find. But I wanted them bias cut so they wouldn't fray without the need for zig-zagging stitching the edges or fray-checking (which I've found to be scratchy in the past). I felt like I was searching for a needle in a haystack.. the only labels I liked worked out really expensive with postage costs factored in.  

The answer? Was waiting in my stash..

Bubble Jet Set & Rinse, freezer paper and
good quality cotton fabric

I didn't take photos of the earliest stages.. in a nutshell I cut the cotton on the bias, into just smaller than A4 sized pieces.  Which I soaked in the Bubble Jet Set solution for an hour or so, then let drip dry.  The great thing with BJS is that you can reuse the liquid.. just pour it back into the bottle after use.   I ironed the cotton flat then ironed it onto the freezer paper.  Now it was ready for printing on :)

I used a blank label template which gave me 50 labels per sheet.. picked out a font I like, typed the first one then copy pasted the rest.

I printed 3 sheets.. then left them a while to settle

I peeled the freezer paper off

Rinsed them in cold water with the Bubble Jet Rinse in,
let them dry and then ironed 

Time to trim

I started off cutting the columns

Then trimming each label

At this point I realised just how long it was going to take..
So started cutting across several columns at once :)  

Which was much faster :)
And in no time at all I had 3 lovely little piles of labels.. 

The first one sewn into a hat

Now I have 150 labels to keep me going for a while, and all it cost me was materials from my stash and some time :)