I'm baaaaaack and this time I mean it!

For the past few years, quilting has become more a chore than a hobby for me. I am trying to find the fun in it again. This said, I started rifling though the closet in my craft/art/sewing/spare bedroom looking for something to inspire me to quilt.

In this huge walk-in closet full of, well, stuff. You can find anything from wrapping paper to magazines to fabric to several long lost relatives in there. Also in this closet are many UFO’s (known in the quilting world as UnFinished Objects). As I dug (yes, literally dug) through my closet, one UFO project I stumbled (yes, literally stumbled) across the infamous Y2K Quilt Project. What is the Y2K Quilt Project you ask? Craziness, I tell you! Craziness!

The Premise: Collect 2000 2" squares from every single state and country you could. The quilter with the most participants wins. (Okay, I made that last part up, but that was how it felt.)

The Goal: To complete a quilt using 2000 different 2" pieces of fabric by the year 2000.

The Result: A box shoved in my closet for 9+ years.

If you haven’t figured this out yet, if you want to RECEIVE 2000 charms or 2” squares, you have to MAIL 2000 2” squares. To meet other quilters who had half wrapped bobbins such as yourself, you could go to the one and only (back then) quilting website… The World Wide Quilting something or other. On this site you could sign up for swaps....one of which was the Y2K swap.

For those of you who don't know squat about quilting, the Y2K project swept us quilters off our feet! This was a HUGE undertaking which took up WAY too much of our time. For those of you who DO know squat about quilting, you are giggling (Barbara, Anne and Jane) right now. YOU remember this, don't you?

And thus, around 1998 or so, the craziness began. We were all in a frenzy! Cutting, mailing, collecting, making our "signies" (signies were a little 2" square where you, um, signed your name, state, etc.), composing "About You" letters, etc. Charms in/charms out. Crazy. Insane. Fun. And competitive. Messages and emails (thank God we didn't text then!) back and forth...did you get Wisconsin? What about Wyoming? Know anyone from Japan? Cutting, mailing, cutting, mailing, cutting, mailing….

I don’t know exactly when the craziness ended, but it did. It probably ended around the same time all of the crazy quilters collectively realized we had to actually SEW these pieces together and put the little suckers into a quilt. Sure, you had your over-achieve quilters who made their blocks as soon as the envelopes arrive. I can name a few. These were the same quilters you wanted to whack with a yard stick. For the most part, however, I am willing to bet there are many, many, many Y2K UFO’s around the world. Come on! Admit it! You have a similar box in your closet!