Tie dye Family Reunion Quilt

When Loren was growing up the Vanden Bosch family would get together for everything!! Many holidays were spent at Sherman Park in Sioux Falls. New Year's tradition was getting pulled behind a pickup in car hoods in alfalfa fields and then homemade soups made by all the aunts. So once all the families started having families of their own the getting together started to dwindle...until a few years ago one family decided it needed to start again and the biannual cousin's gathering was started. We have met at Inspiration Hills the last 3 times and it works out really nice.
Last time Loren's family was in charge. Well if I am in charge there needs to be something creative as part of the activities!!! I had seen this Sharpie tiedye demonstrated at a quilting retreat and put it in the back of my mind for reference. This seemed to be the perfect time to use it.

Gather the supplies...7"-8" squares of Kona white fabric is my preference--but can use anything
an assortment of colored Sharpie markers--I did have a few Bic colored markers and they worked similar--but left the original drawn line a bit more obvious
Styofoam drinking cups and rubber bands to go around them
Regular Rubbing alcohol and an eyedropper
Pigma black scrapbooking pen to sign name after alcohol dries

I don't have any step by step photos but the idea is to place the fabric on top of the glass, then secure with the rubber band around it. Pull the sides to get any wrinkles out and then let the family have fun drawing on them. When finished drawing we made the whole top circle of fabric wet with the rubbing alcohol and let the kids watch the colors spread into each other.  When the spreading of colors has stopped take the fabric off the cup and lay flat to dry then use the Pigma pen to add the signature to the square.

Be prepared to have way more fabric squares than you think you will need because the kids REALLY have fun with this project!!! And actually the adults did too!!!

I trimmed the squares down to 4 1/2 " and then sashed them all with 1 1/2" black strips. Quilted it with an allover meander in a soft pastel varigieted Rainbows Superior thread. Bound it with the black. I must admit that it looked quite striking!!!

These are some kind of Statistics  equations--or something like that--from a professor!!

Go Twins!! by a young boy!!

 

All of them pieced together and hanging on the design wall before it was quilted.

At the reunion this last Saturday we had everyone write down who was at the last one and then we put all the names in a bag and made the oldest Aunt Nina draw out the name--she never wants to hurt anyone's feelings so she wanted to give it to everyone--but could only be one winner. Our niece Melissa Moget's name was drawn, she is 14 and her room is purple so it should be a nice reminder about family for her.

Since the last reunion we have had 2 of our members pass away and both of their spouses were very overwhelmed to see the square that their loved one had made. So it just goes to show that who knows where a memory can be made!! Try it with your family!!!