Custom Woven Clothing Labels from Nominette

I've often turned green eyed with envy at pictures of other sewer's beautiful custom woven garment labels. 'Handmade by...', 'Made With Love' or my personal favourite 'Made with !*£@!' But I've never actually got round to getting any of my own. When sewing and blogging time is in short supply giving up any of it to design my own labels is just not going to happen! However, when Nominette contacted me a little while back to ask if I'd like some of my own in return for a review it was just the push I needed to finally take the plunge and I was pleasantly surprised by how quick and easy the process was. Despite the sponsored nature of this post the opinions in it are my genuine perception of the process and product and I agreed to the post because they are something I had genuinely often been tempted by and thought you readers would too!

I was offered 100 of the 25mm wide clothing labels with logo. You have to make a number of design decisions in order to create your labels but I was really impressed with the straightforward layout of the page and how easy it was to navigate through the process. I am one of the least decisive people on the planet so was kind of dreading how long this might take me when faced with all the options but it's all on one page so you can see exactly what your options are and whilst extensive they are not overwhelming.

The first decision you have to make is the label type; whether you want your logo to fold at the ends so it's stitched flat to the garment or fold in the middle so it can be attached like a care label into a seam. I was equally tempted by both but eventually opted for the end fold version as I envisioned I'd use them more stitched inside a neckline or waistband like a brand label. There's various ways to sew them in; here I have folded the ends under and hand stitched mine into the garment once completed as the stitches don't show through to the right side but you could machine stitch the label to a lining/facing/pocket piece before assembly if you wanted. Another idea would be to trim the ends of the label with pinking shears rather than turn them under.

Next you upload your logo. This was by far the lengthiest part of the process for me as I needed to design mine. It actually didn't take me all that long as I used a font and scissor image which is already part of my blog and used the free online software from PicMonkey to create a 'collage'. If you've already got a logo ready to go then uploading it to Nominette will take mere seconds. Excluding the logo design the whole process probably took me about half an hour. Once uploaded your logo will show in the 'example label' box. This is nice and clear and I must say a pretty accurate representation of what the finished label will look like.

However, this is where the one part of the process that I really struggled with comes in. I found it really difficult to envision the size of my logo on the finished label. As you can see the measurements of the label are shown but obviously the label on the screen isn't the same size as your label will be so I was concerned that my font might turn out too small to be clearly legible as it's a little fussy. There seems to be no restriction on how detailed your logo can be. I spent a fair bit of time looking at a ruler then back at the screen and trying to imagine the logo shrunk down a bit and woven! I don't think I needed to worry though. Now I've received the labels I can see that the method of weaving them is super accurate and I think you could get fairly intricate with your design without a problem!

Other options you have to choose from are whether you want to add text and laundry care symbols (to the middle fold labels only) and the colour of the background and text/logo colour. You can only choose one colour for each so that is a reason to keep you logo and text design clean and simple but clean and simple is what I wanted so I was more than happy! After you've selected those you're good to go. They're £53 plus postage for 100 labels (with discounts after 100 increasing the more your order). This might sound like a large outlay but actually I think about 55p per personalised label is very reasonable now I've seen the label quality. The delivery was really speedy considering that they are made to order and (despite the UK website) the company are based in Belgium; they arrived within a week!

I cannot overstate how happy I was when I opened my package! The individual labels are the perfect size and the logo shows up really crisp and clean. They are taffeta which makes them super strong whilst at the same time lovely and smooth so they won't irritate you if worn next to the skin. I haven't had a chance to sew them into many items so they are yet to go through a trial run in the washing machine but I am 99% certain that there won't be any problems. You can feel that they are a durable item. They arrive connected to each other in a number of lengths which are wound around a card. All you have to do is cut them apart along the line marked in the weave and they are ready to use. There's a good amount left empty at either end of each label to allow for a decent turn under.

The labels are definitely professional enough to be used if you run a business making handmade goods but I also think these would make an absolutely gorgeous gift for a home sewer, it's a shame I've only just got around to posting these and that we've just had Christmas! The delivery arrived just too late for me to sew them into my handmade gifts too so I might have to take them back to sew them in...