Laura Hartrich: Liner Notes and Labels: Learning to Love Quilt Documentation

This artist presented her case for upping your documentation game to my quilt guild, and she made a great case for both why you should do it and how you can do it. I took a class with her at QuiltCon 2025, jusy monthd after one of her children had committed suicide and her quilt about them was in the show. So, emotionally complicated and she did not hide behind the messiness. Instead she disclosed, talking about how she was struggling with it. She is a storyteller and no all stories have hsppy endings. She taught me about more than a fast way to embroider letters that dat.

Laura Hartrich is an award-winning quilter who lives in Oak Park, Illinois, just outside of Chicago, with her family, and she graduated mid-career from a master’s program in occupational therapy. Her work explores themes of reflection, acceptance, time, and memory, and is driven by a deep love of color, texture, and meaning. A documenter of her life from a young age, she immediately connected with the tradition of labeling quilts and has been a dedicated labeler ever since. When she speaks about quilt labels, she emphasizes motivation over technique, believing that while many strong techniques exist, labels are often neglected without the right mindset. She is passionate about sending her quilts out into the world with their stories firmly attached, an idea that resonates deeply with many other quilters. Her key is to journal. She likes to do it long form, but you can do virtual, but the key is excessive documenation and then translating some of to the quilt label.