I want to make a family tree quilt for my MIL, and I am going to try to find out the pattern of the quilt I have that my grandmother made. Apparently her's is a signature block quilt that family members signed and she embroidered over their signatures...

My question is...do I send out material to people to sign with pencils, ink pens or what right on the fabric?

Also, the people who are no longer alive, how are their signature blocks done?

Use pigmant pens, then heat set it, unles syou plan on stitching over the writting... then I'd use pencils I think. If you iron the block to freezer paper, it act as a stablizer for writting. Good luck & post a photo when you're done!

ditto :)

so I iron freezer paper to back of block before sending it out to sign? And yes, will be stitching over the signatures. Here is a picture of my grandmother's quilt.

micro pens are best, they are permenent, do not bleed or fade, are acid free and made for this.
we did one at my daughter's wedding reception i had made 300 siggy blocks...they were sitting on a table just inside the door of the reception hall with a basket of pens and a sign. everyone who attended their reception signed and dated a block (some people added little 'words of wisdom' for the new couple. then all of the blocks were put in a box for me to turn into a quilt! we used 3 1/2" siggy squares for hers.
and no...i do not have pictures...i was way worse back then than i am now...and i'm still bad about it but i do try harder now to remember to snap a pic.
you might want to make the blocks ahead of time...otherwise if you just send squares of fabric some people may write on them in ways you can not make them fit into your blocks without cutting off part of the name....or draw the area you want them to stay within---easier to just make the blocks i think

as for the family members who have passed away? you have to do those blocks yourself i guess...and maybe put the year they passed on them instead of the current date..

You might want to use one of those blue wash out fabric markers to mark 1/2" inside the borders of your block and ask everyone to please stay within the markings. That way if they go just a hair over it won't hurt.

With using permanent pens for signatures you don't have to embroider over them unless you just want to for a more authentic look. Personally if there are people that are deceased that you want on there I'd do all those myself and print their names. That would indicate that at the time the quilt was made they had passed on. You might even want to put birth and death years on there.

If you have their signatures on letters or something else, you could use a light box and trace them onto fabric.