Shelbie

The easiest way to make this type of quilt is to give each student a square of poly/cotton fabric and regular crayons (Crayola work well). Have them draw their memory, colour in heavily and sign it with a Pigma pen. Heat set the squares by ironing between paper towels to absorb the excess wax. Then stitch the squares together. There is no need to try and transfer the design and the crayon stands up remarkedly well as the colour is right into the fabric. Polycotton fabric works better for this than 100% cotton. I have done this project several times with grade six classes. I machine quilted these quilts by just outling the squares and did SID along the sashing and cornerstones.

jdiane318

I am invited to several Autism Resource Fairs during the year because our Project Linus chapter makes and donates the weighted blankets. Everyone who participates has to have an activity for the children to do. I take 6½" square muslin blocks, I provide the fabric markers and crayons and let the child do whatever he wants to that block. I then take the blocks and create a wall-hanging and donate it back to the sponsor organization. Just an idea.

susie-susie-susie

Shelbie has a good idea. If you have them sign the back, no one will see their signitures. Her way will preserve a memory and I don't think you need anything on the back. Just get some wood molding from a lumber yard and make a frame. Surely someone's Dad is handy and can make a frame.
Sue

hobo2000

We did one with the rowing teams. Each member coated their hand with the color of fabric paint and placed it on a 8.5" square. We heat sealed it and they signed their name date and boat. It turned out great. I notice every time they come by the school they test to see if their hands have grown. This year, the school had glass put over because of all of the "testing. LOL

blzzrdqueen

Wow, I really like that idea!! I'm writing all these ideas down so if you all have more, keep them coming!!

salmonsweet

blzzrdqueen, I LOVE LOVE your idea of a picture quilt. I've seen pictures of school quilts made in this way and they were AWESOME. What I really love about it is that it lets every kid express themselves creatively and gives them a chance to think about what they like about their school experience. Not sure why others here are so keen to wet-blanket your idea....

I'll see if I can quickly find a few of these quilts on this board, I'm positive I've seen them here. If you change your topic title to something like "help needed with school pictures quilt", you might get more of the right people dropping in to help as well. :)

Good luck!!!! :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

salmonsweet

Ok my search fu is weak. At least on this board. But I googled "school quilts" as images and here are the very first pictures that came up:

Quilts with pictures made by kids
http://quilting.trinketpapillons.com/schoolquilts.html

Quilts with kids' hands
http://www.schools.nt.edu.au/barunga/

Applique Quilt with pictures made by kids, by cutting out fabrics in shapes they liked!! (oh I like...)
http://www.elevenstitches.com/eleven...ool-quilt.html

There's tons more images on google, and I think the sites I'm linking have instructions or at least tips about making them, too.

nycquilter

the first school/group quilt I did was for the chess club. the quilt was made of 4or5" blocks that the kids signed and then the parents embroidered their kid's signature. the design was a chess board in the school colors. That was fun and relatively easy. In later years, I backed 12" white squares with freezer paper, supplied fabric markers and the kids did self-portraits (1st and 2nd grades). 3rd grade I did foundation-pieced school houses that I taught the kids how to sew, the foundation was muslin so the blocks held together well. Another year, I did foundation pieced blocks of the snail-trail pattern as the kids had studied tesselations. Last year, for my god-daughter, I backed white fabric with freezer paper and they colored with crayola crayons, gelly roll pens and fabric markers. that theme was NYC: Buildings, landmarks, and ???--the quilts were all fabulous (IMHO) and raised a lot of money for the schools.

Laurie

sewwhat85

good luck

MadQuilter

I did one for my niece's teacher where the kids each supplied their message/picture on a piece of paper. I scanned them into my computer and printed them out on fabric. But there were only 25 kids. It was a bit of work but a lot of fun. I used "kid/school" fabric for sashing and borders.

70 kids - that's a lot of blocks. Good luck.

Be careful with the markers. Not many are actually made for fabric. My colored Sharpies say "not made for fabric" on the box. If the teacher ever needed to wash the quilt, that may be a problem.