Betty Reynolds' Millennium Charm Quilt Project
Finished quilt top measures 94 x 100"
Here's my completed quilt on display at the
Houston Quilt Festival in November 2000--one of 24 quilts
chosen to represent the phenomenon of collecting signatures
and charms via the internet.
Here are the first 15 blocks arranged at random on the
design wall From left to right, the blocks are by:
top row: Pam Martinsen NY, Maureen Harper Australia, Bobbie & Gary
Stendel NM, Laura Johnson VA, Laura Gaschler NE
middle row: Suzanne Wollard TX, Candy Hargrove MO, Dorothy Heritage
NJ, Shirlee Gotterbarn TN, Betty Reynolds NM
bottom row: Barbara Phillips CA, Klea Montgomery NM, Kitty Fuchs
PA, Beth Bardot IA, Vickie Ritthaler WY
Here are several quilt blocks for my Millennium
Quilt. The one on the left is my own and includes the border blocks for
the lower right corner of the quilt; the one on the right comes
from Missouri and was my first Y2K swap and first block
finished.
The left block comes from New York, and the one on the
right is from Hawaii. There's not much contrast in the lights and darks in the Hawaii
block so the star doesn't show up well, but all the fabrics are Hawaiian
prints.
This is the block I made after making a pilgrimage to Las
Cruces to get Sarah Curry's signature on a typically New Mexico
charm.
The label includes 11 more signatures on 10
more star blocks. The center reads:
Welcome to the Third Millennium!
A Millennium Charm Quilt by Betty Blakslee Reynolds
Hillsboro, New Mexico, USA
Started Nov. 12, 1998 -- Completed April 10, 1999
Over 2000 different charms and 178 signatures of
quilters representing 50 US states plus DC, all
Canadian provinces plus Yukon, all Australian
states, and 19 other countries
If you sleep under this quilt please sign and date the
back
Arthur Aardvark supervises the quilting process (left) and the
binding (right)
Charm quilts have been around since the 1880's, with revivals of the style
taking place in the 1920's and the 1980's. Now as we approach the turn of
the second millennium on Jan. 1, 2001, the style is being revived again.
A traditional charm quilt is one using only a single template for each
piece, and
each piece is a unique piece of printed fabric. There is no sashing and
no border. A quilter would carry her template with her as she visited
friends and cut new pieces from the friend's stash of fabrics.
With the internet it's no longer necessary to travel to visit friends to
assemble the variety of fabrics needed to complete a charm quilt.
Quilters discover one another and agree to exchange charms through email.
Making the process even easier are several lists and web pages
(some of which are no longer functioning: Y2KQuilts
List, Charmexchange, CrazyQuilters Y2K Swap, QuiltSwappers,
and Trading Post--Y2K
Exchange Forum on which new charm swappers may be located and plans
for our millennium and other charm quilts are discussed.
My millennium quilt is not a traditional charm quilt because it is
made up of both triangles and squares. But like a charm quilt I
strove for all unique fabrics--more than 2000 in all. Each nine-patch
block is arranged in the Friendship Star pattern, composed of four
charm squares and eight half-square triangles surrounding a signature
square which includes the quilter's name, town, and state, province or
country. Sometimes the star spins right and sometimes it spins left;
sometimes the star is dark on a light ground and sometimes it is light on
a dark ground. The stars can be seen amidst the general
chaos of the charm quilt style.
I've been asked how I get a 3" square divided diagonally using 3" charms
(usually you would cut these from 3 3/8" charms) The explanation is on
Mickie's Cranberry Township
Millennium Quilt Page which results in another set of smaller squares
which I can use in yet another quilt.
I used this web page to record my progress on the project. My own
first block, pictured above, was completed on November 12, 1998. I
received charms from the following states,
provinces and countries:
All 50 of the United States plus the District of Columbia.
In Canada I have all the provinces plus Yukon.
For other non-North America I have Australia, Bahamas, Belgium, Denmark,
England, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Japan, Kuwait, Netherlands, New
Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Singapore, South Africa,
South Korea, and Switzerland.
The Math
I traded 3" charms and sigs which makes this quilt a little larger
than I would ordinarily make, but it includes 156 star blocks, arranged 12
across and 13 down, which gives me more than 1872 charms. (I say
"more than" because some of my sigs are on plain muslin and others are
on unique fabrics, so I get more than 12 fabrics per block) I set a
single row of 3" charms around the outside edge as a
border (another 150 fabrics) For binding I used the millennium fabric
pictured below. OK, so this is more than 2000 fabrics, but I'm
intending to live well beyond the year 2000 too!
The Backing
The quilt is backed with plain wide muslin so that it doesn't have
any seams, and I picked up a great idea from another millennium quilter.
I'm using this quilt on my guest bed, and anyone who sleeps under
it signs the back of the quilt. It will become a sort of giant guest
book for the new millennium.
For further information about charm quilts, I recommend reading the
following articles and books:
Aug, Bobbie and Sharon Newman. Charm
Quilts with Style. American Quilter's Society, 2000.
Benberry, Cuesta. "Charm Quilts." Quilter's Newsletter Magazine,
no. 120, March 1980, p. 14-15.
Benberry, Cuesta. "Charm Quilts Revisited." Quilter's Newsletter
Magazine, no. 198, Jan. 1988, p. 30-35 and no. 199, Feb. 1988, p.
18-21.
Beyer, Jinny. Designing
Tesselations, the Secrets of Interlocking
Patterns. Contemporary Books, 1999.
Beyer, Jinny. The Scrap Look. EPM Publications, 1985.
Boyink, Betty. One Patch and Beyond. B. Boyink Publishing,
1997.
Johnson, Anne. The
Charming History of Charm Quilts in Exploring Quilting History
Nickols, Pat L. "Charm Quilts: Characteristics and Variations,
1870s-1990s." Uncoverings 1996, American Quilt Study Group,
p.179-208.
Nickols, Pat L. "Charm Quilts." PieceWork Magazine, July/Aug.
1997, 5 p. (same issue contains a charm quilt
pattern, Patriotic mini-quilt, 3 p.)
Smith, Janet Jo. "The Charming One-Patch." Quilter's Newsletter
Magazine, no. 323, June 2000, p. 54-59.
For other millennium quilts, check out these links:
Blairton's Y2K
Quilt Pic Page--community Y2K quilts made from donations to help this
West Virginia community fight legal battles over water
Carol
Doak's Y2K Quilt--a paper piecing pattern which uses 20 pieces.
Cats, Knots and
Needles Y2K Swap Quilt
Debbie
Richardson's Millennium Quilt--made with 1" charms. Look at the very
bottom of this page
Heatherlynn's
Y2K Quilt--5x5 blocks, sig in the center, sashing and setting squares
Jean's
yellow brick road Y2K quilt
Katie's Millennium
Quilt Playground--25 charms including the sig make a block
Kimberly's Y2K
Quilt In The Making--charms are yo-yo flowers
LadyJai's Y2K
quilt--a crazy quilt
Lisa's Y2K
Quilt in Progress--a quilt with yellow chains
Maria's Y2K
Swap Quilt--using the "contrary wife" block
Marissa
Vignali's Millenium Quilt Idea--made with small, narrow strips, not
squares
Mickie in Cranberry
Township, Pennsylvania--how to make two quilts with one set of 2000
charms
Millennia
Mania--foundation paper-piecing pattern to buy for a confetti quilt
Millennium
Mania--Bonnie Hunter's zig zag triangle quilt
Millenium Quilt Idea
Page
Mimi
in Virginia's Y2K Quilt--a yellow brick road quilt
QuiltWorks
in Albuquerque, NM's Millennium Challenge Contest
Y2K Quilts--a Millennial
Celebration--an exhibit of 25 Y2K quilts exhibited at the
International Quilt Festival in Houston in November 2000, of which my quilt is one
Let me know if you find others
Return to Betty
Reynolds' Quilting Page