My son leaves in Feb for Afghanistan and I want to make him a quilt to take with him. I want the family and his friends to sign it, not a normal autograph quilt, something different, but I havent decided how to do it yet. I want family and friends not to just sign their names but things like well miss you, be safe, hurry home, take care, outlines of his little boys hands, etc. Something different. Im thinking maybe a big rectangle in the center with where everyone can write or maybe a square, I dont know, Ill have to work on that. I want to know about the pigma pens, is that what I need to use? How well do they hold up? I dont want something that will fade or bleed and that will have crisp lines when they write. Are there better pens out there? Ive never used them before so Im not sure which ones are the best?

Have you checked with your son to see if he would be allowed to take something like that with him? A lot of times the military severely limits how much they can take when they go but you might be able to send it to him after he's there.

If he cant take it with him I can mail it to him, but when he went to Kosovo he was allowed to take personal things. Either way, I want to finish it before he leaves.

I recently completed a signature quilt.
The pigma pens worked out perfectly.
Like you, I was skeptical about doing all of that work just so it would wash out.
To test, i wrote with the pen on a scrap piece of quilt fabric. I poured laundry detergent directly on it and scrubbed like grandma taught me!

I let it soak for 2 hours in warm sink.

I figured that was the worst it would see.

The writing was still on it!

I could not have been more pleased with how this signature quilt turned out.
I made mine look like a brick wall. The bricks were 4x7 cut, 3.5x6.5 which was enough room for a big signature or a message.
This quilt has about 180 signatures.
One other thing I did - I added blank bricks throughout in case I'd missed someone... then, it could be signed after I'd quilted it.

I hope this helps.

Be sure and iron freezer paper to the back of where everyone will be signing, it will help them and it looks so much nicer when they are finished too!!! You can reuse it on other blocks when one is done, too :wink:

Trugger, I love your quilt! Its not traditional which is what I want, something different! And Amma thanks for letting me know about the freezer paper, I wouldnt have thought of that, thanks.

Beautiful quilt trugger! I just made one for my mom's birthday. I didn't test the pens like that, so it's good to know they'll last. I prefered the pigma size 05, the 03 is way to difficult to sign. I used freezer paper too and I drew pencil lines on the seam lines. Some people signed, some drew pictures.

You also have to heat set with an iron.

Don't forget to heat-set the siggies with a hot iron.

I also have a set of fabric markers. (NOT Sharpies!) Mine have a fine tip and a fatter tip. The fine tip can be used to write - the fatter tip is more like a brush. The set has some fun colors and I have used it on occasion without problem. Again, don't forget to heat-set.

can you give a brand name for the pens or where you got them(hobby lobby --art dept.)?

Mine are like these.
http://www.dharmatrading.com/html/en...v=markers.html