Anyone for a QR coded Quilt Label...?

I've been wanting to write about this QR topic for quite awhile, now.  I stumbled across this really great tut over at Cindi Quilts blog while searching for a really neat quilt care label, which they also happened to have and which I keep under my Favorite Tutorials Tab.  This one will soon join that list ;-)  First, I'll show you the finished product and we'll go from there:

Quilt label w/QR code attached on left side

Here's a close-up of the QR coded label:

QR code printed onto muslin

What's soooo neat about having a QR code on a quilt label in the first place?  And just HOW did I do it?  And Why?

First things first ;-)  This particular QR code is encrypted with the actual blog address to a particular quilt, which happens to be my DGD's Dr. Who quilt, recently completed.

I printed it onto fabric - white heavily starched muslin in this case, using the crafter/quilter's tried and true wax backed freezer paper:

Just iron it onto the back of whatever fabric you wish to print and/or write on using a dry iron, (I recently used this same method to write on a T-shirt for one of my daughter's Christmas presents - worked great!), make sure the fabric piece you wish to print is the proper size for you printer and print away.

First, you will need to pop over to beqrious.com and click on “QR Code Generator”, as Cindi instructs and plug in the web/blog address you wish to have a QR code generated for.  Capture the code, save as a jpeg, .pdf or various other file formats, whichever you desire and save.  I had greater luck copying and pasting the saved file into the center of a word document and then printing, but that's just me.

You'll also need a tag reader for your phone or computer.  There are a whole bunch out there,  I did a search on my iphone for tag reader and found an iHandy scan QR & Barcodes app for F R E E and downloaded - it works like a jet to scan my QR codes, (the Pro version is available for a small fee, I haven't had the need so far).  This particular QR scan will take one directly to the Dr. Who blog posting about this quilt!  How cool is that?

I also made a general QR code just for my blog that can be incorporated into a Quilt Care label like Cindi did and another for some charitable projects I'm currently working on and for my Civil War quilts and...the possibilities are endless.  For a complete tutorial about this, hop/skip/run over to Cindi's and Read ALL About It!  She keeps it available for ALL of us under her Tutorials link.  Is that nice of her or what, I ask You?!?  If you happen to decide to use some of her nifty quilt ideas like I have, drop her a line and let her know how great you think they are - I did!

Oh, and just for you pic-lovers, I took a few of the actual Dr. Who quilt label being created so, here you go:

Dr. Who quilt label getting embroidered

Checking QR label placement next to embroidery

Originally, I was going to print the QR code onto the fabric for the embroidered label first, then hoop and embroider but I thought, what if I goof on placement and one little teeny-weeny embroidery stitch happens to stitch into the QR code and ruin it soooo, decided to print/embroider separately and then attach the QR label upon completion of the embroidery.  It worked great, too, because I was able to print-out different sizes and check to make sure they would fit and that they scanned properly, which they did!

Embroidery ALL finished - time to attach the QR label (above)

This was FUN to do and a really neat way to 'code' those labels for the intended who might enjoy "reading their quilt's story", and there's even a way to 'track' the codes if one so chooses...

 And now, time to get back to quilting a stunning QOV - pics coming soon!
~Deb