Millennium Quilt 8 Went Home With Kierstin

I had been the custodian of 4 of the grandchildren’s quilts I made.
Kierstin was so young when she received it she doesn’t even remember the quilt nor the party we had with the 4 local grandchildren.

Here she is taking a swing at the Millennium piñata. She was not feeling good that night but she made it up to see the New Year in both in New York and locally on TV. She was so excited as there were fireworks on the TV and looking out the doors the neighbors were also shooting them off.
My hope is that each one of the grandchildren treasure their quilts as an heirloom and they are able to someday pass them on to their grandchildren and beyond.
Each one is king size and uses 2000 different fabrics. I made one for each of the 8 grandchildren.
All the other grandchildren have theirs already.

Another Beautiful Millennium Quilt Went Home

Dana was in town today so she stopped to pick up her Millennium quilt. Of course we had to take her picture too.
She brought her little brother Caleb along and when it was time for me to click the picture he was my helper and told her when to smile!
She is the only one of my grandchildren you has made several quilts, even with her busy schedule as she finishes her education.
Each of the older 8 grandchildren has had an opportunity to learn to quilt and sew with me.

Another Millennium Quilt Goes Home

My grandson Jeff is now old enough to treat his quilt with the care it deserves.
He was only 7 when I made it and he hardly remembered it.

Each of the Millennium quilts I made for my 8 grandchildren had 2000 different squares of fabric.
The blocks were similar but not identical. A lot of the fabrics came from trading with about 500 different people all around the world. I would stack 8 similar fabrics as I made the 25 patch blocks. If I was using my own fabrics then there would be 8 identical fabrics in a stack.
I then designed each one on my design wall in my studio. The borders are Jinny Beyer Millennium fabric. Each one had a different colored border, although some of the cousins had the same border as there were less than 8 different border fabrics.

Heidi’s Millennium Quilt Goes Home With Her!

Tonight Heidi and Nate visited me. This is one of the 8 quilts I made for my grand children for the Millennium. Each quilt has 2000 different fabrics and was bordered and backed with Jinny Beyer’s Millennium fabric.
I had the quilts belonging to the local grandchildren here for safe keeping. Now that Heidi and Nate have their own house they have space to keep this quilt safe. It is King size.

I made a special label for the back of each quilt sharing information about it.
I also made a bag and drawstring from the Millennium fabric to match each quilt.
My hope is that each of the quilts will be an heirloom that will be passed down in each family.

Quilts for the Millennium - Rerun

I sometimes introduce myself by saying "My name is Kay, - I don't do bed quilts - Sorensen.

I made an exception to that for the Millennium. I made a king size charm quilt for each of my 8 grandchildren.

Each quilt has 2000 different fabrics with a Millennium Border Print.
I traded fabric with over 350 people from around the world to do the project.

The grandchildren are only allowed to sleep under them on New Year's Eve or other special occasions. Each quilt is accompanied by a Journal so they can record their activities, photos and share where they were each time they use the quilts.

They were started in April 1999 and finished on December 15, 1999.

This would not have been possible if I had not had Sandy Schilawski of Green Bay, Wisconsin quilt them. She did a fantastic job and I really appreciated it.

No one was more amazed than me that I finished all 8 in that period of time!

The photo shows only 1 quilt but there are REALLY 8 - each with different borders and backings, but all with similar color layouts.

Unforgettable, that's what you are

These are some of the quilts I have featured on my blog that many viewers have told me are unforgettable.


In Living Color is one of those quilts I have made that many find unforgettable.



Meet Me At The Fair has an unforgettable story.



Eight Pointed Star for One Arm Quilter is one of those quilts people don't forget.



Bordering On A New Millennium has a place of honor in my house. People have spent a lot of time standing in front of it and don't forget it.



Wow is another quilt no one forgets after they have seen it.



Anyone who visits my blog can not forget Journey.


Are these the quilts that I have featured that you remember?
If there are others that are imprinted in your memory I'd love for you to leave a comment and let me know which one or ones they are.

Quilt turning on the studio bed - Part 4

Turning point used a variation of my tubular spiral patchwork technique. You can see the hole in the center if you look closely. This quilt was also featured in Julie Silber's lecture the Grandmother Connection I talked about earlier. It has also been in many art exhibitions.


A lot of my quilts have irregular shapes and Night Watch is one of them. The lattice uses a 24 color hand dyed rainbow.


On The Wing Of A New Millennium was made for an invitational show at The Anderson Arts Center in Kenosha, Wisconsin to celebrate the Millennium.


Meet Me At The Fair was a totally enjoyable quilt to make, with the help of a grandson who was 2 1/2 at the time.

This one's for you Mary! My sister in law Mary has done every single one of my puzzles which number well over 200. These are her 2 oldest grandsons and my great nephews. I love the photo and it will be the 4th of July again in 5 months and 5 days.

Millennium Time Capsule

We celebrated New Years Eve 2000 with our 4 local grandchildren. If you would like to see the Millennium quilts and their story just click Millennium quilts in the right side bar.
One of our activities was creating a time capsule, contained in the basket you see.
We decided to open it this year so had a pizza party and had the grand opening.



This poster features many New Years Eves but the emphasis is on our Millennium celebration.


The first item on the agenda was enjoying the delicious pizza from one of our local pizza parlors.


Jeff and Cooper did the honors opening the time capsule.


These are some of the things that were in the time capsule.


Heidi is modeling a tiara that was in the capsule.


When we celebrated Christmas this year I had each of the kids pick their favorite color from a selection of paint chips and sign and date it. They had no idea why I was asking them to do it. They forgot they had picked their favorite colors as we celebrated New Years Eve 2000 and that they were placed in the time capsule. Here is Dana with her sample from this year and her samples from the Millennium.


It looks like Kierstin dressed to match the colors she choose in 2000 and picked an accent color this year.


Since Cooper was not born until long after the Millennium had passed, he only had the colors from this year.


Jeff has loved orange for a LONG time but evidently hadn't chosen it at the time of the Millennium.


The time capsule contained little bottles of bubble stuff. Everyone, young and old enjoyed blowing bubbles.


And here are the original 4 participants from our Millennium party all grown up!

I don't think anyone enjoys my puzzles more than Cooper. I click the autosolve and they go click - click - click and he is fascinated.

As 2009 comes to a close it seems like it just began!

Ten years ago we were all concerned what was going to happen when the Millennium changed our years from the 1900's to the 2000's.
Fortunately what we were worried about never came to pass.
When my grandchildren visited we discussed the time capsule we created on that New Years Eve at our grandparents/grandchildren party. The feeling is it is time to open it soon.
It may not happen New Years Eve but it will happen before our second granddaughter returns to college in January.

If you missed the story of the Millennium party and quilts here is some of it.



You can click on each of these document to see them clearly and also read the article.

Time has flown on the Wing of a New Millennium

If you read the newspaper article about the Millennium quilts on my New Year's Eve blog this quilt was mentioned. It was made for an invitational Millennium show at the Anderson Arts Center.
I created this quilt by cutting without any marking or pattern. Each step gave me a clue what to do next.
It was a challenge figuring out how to hang it. The hanging apparatus was finished 10 minutes before I had to turn it in. I held it up and the whole top of the quilt fell forward. Not the effect I was trying to create.
I took it to the art center and told Candace about the problem. I asked her to let me know if I should come in and make some adjustments when I got back from Florida in 2 weeks - which would still give me several days before the opening of the show. I never heard from her. When I went to the opening she said "That's the best piece we've ever hung on that curved wall at the top of the stairs".
Yes, it did fall slightly forward at the top and it looked like it was taking off in flight. What a perfect installation for a quilt titled "On The Wing of a New Millennium".

In this photo you can see another one of my quilts "Some Kind of Rainbow" hanging in that same curved area. To hang this one I carefully bent the metal bar I used to hang the quilt to conform to the curve of the wall. Now just imagine "The Wing" hanging there looking like it is in flight!! Unfortunately I never took a photo of it installed.
Yes, time has been flying on the wing of the new millennium - faster and faster all the time.

Time for a puzzle again. This is the curve staircase at Anderson Arts Center with several of my black and white quilts leading up to the colored quilts at the top.

Reflecting on 2008 and the New Millennium

As I think back on 2008 it has been an eventful year.
NO, you are not going to get a report on everything I've done!!!!!!!!!!
Instead I'm going to share some photos from a very memorable New Year's Eve with you.
Who can forget New Years Eve 2000? We were all concerned about what was going to happen when the clocks and computers tried to change from 1999 to 2000. As it turned out there were no significant problems.
I did have jugs of water ready and that was about it!

This was the year my 8 grandchildren each received their Milllennium Quilts I made for Christmas.

Please click on the article and photo and they'll enlarge so can read the story about the quilts.





Jerry and I are showing one of the quilts to Uncle Joe and Aunt Sue. You remember Aunt Sue - she's the one who makes the great hand made Christmas cards but you can't see her, only a little of Uncle Joe's face!

For one family of grandchildren this started a tradition of sleeping in the living room with their quilts around the Christmas tree on New Years Eve.




The quilts are made to sleep under ONLY ON NEW YEAR'S EVE or other special occasions. They each came with a journal to keep track of where they were, who they were with and to put photos in.


The local grandchildren joined us for a New Year's Eve children's party. They made games, played games, ate lots of good stuff, made noise, tried to break the pinata, and watched the fireworks. The fireworks were one of the neatest things as all our neighbors were all shooting off fireworks and we were also seeing them on the TV right next to the glass doors. They all stayed up and welcomed the New Year in in New York and were still wide awake when we welcomed the New Year in Wisconsin. Then they fell asleep under their quilts.
The newspaper photo was taken at our party.
They made a time capsule which I have for safe keeping for them to open in ????.

I wish you all a Very Happy New Year!

Quilts for the Millennium

I sometimes introduce myself by saying "My name is Kay, - I don't do bed quilts - Sorensen.

I made an exception to that for the Millennium. I made a king size charm quilt for each of my 8 grandchildren.

Each quilt has 2000 different fabrics with a Millennium Border Print.
I traded fabric with over 350 people from around the world to do the project.

The grandchildren are only allowed to sleep under them on New Year's Eve or other special occasions. Each quilt is accompanied by a Journal so they can record their activities, photos and share where they were each time they use the quilts.

They were started in April 1999 and finished on December 15, 1999.

This would not have been possible if I had not had Sandy Schilawski of Green Bay, Wisconsin quilt them. She did a fantastic job and I really appreciated it.

No one was more amazed than me that I finished all 8 in that period of time!

The photo shows only 1 quilt but there are REALLY 8 - each with different borders and backings, but all with similar color layouts.