Good morning my Quilty Friends.
Todays post is about the Millenium Quilt or Y2K Swap.
Do you remember back in 1999, when we were all so excited about reaching our 2000th year.
There was much speculation about it’s effects on the world in general and computer systems in particular.
There was a school of thought that felt many computer systems would be unable to cope with the change from 1999 to 2000.
Well, happily we reach the end of 1999 and burst into 2000 without a hitch. Happy days.
Anyways, over the weekend I was taking my ‘Millenium quilt’ off my bed and thought, um…..my quilty friends might like to know about this.
Back in the day, before laptops, tabs and very cleaver mobile phones. I was sat (as many of us did back then) in the little bedroom where our computer was housed, wandering slowly (dail up) thru the web when I came across something called the Y2K swap.
Basically you put your email address and where you were from onto the Y2K website to join in with the swap. Once you were on the swap list you could either email others on the list or others would email you asking you to swap with them.
In fact this is when I got my first email address. I’d been using my hubby’s. But realised I’d need my own doing this swap. And so that’s when I became Joy.wales – I wanted other swappers to easily see where I was from.
The idea was to swap 2000 either two and a half inch or three inch squares (I chose the three inch swap) so you could make a Millenium quilt containing said 2000 squares.
Each swap was for 25 squares, so you needed to swap with 80 people to get your 2000 squares – with me so far…….
Yes, good.
I didn’t have to contact many people at all. I was inundated with requests.
What I didn’t realize when I started was there were very few people in Wales UK doing the swap. And lots of swappers were looking for one swap from each country. With many Americans wanting one swap from each of the American States and then spreading out into the rest of the world.
Within a short time I had my 80 swaps.
BUT
I received so many more emails begging me to swap with them as they couldn’t find another Welsh swap. I felt so sorry for them that I started a second time.
So I ended up with over 4000 squares – I couldn’t turn anyone away which is why I ended up with a little over 4000.
This was a very exciting time. As the ‘squishies’ as they were called started dropping through my letter box.
Each squishy was a small envelope with 25 different squares of fabric inside along with a siggie which was a square with the swappers signature on.
And also a bio, which was a page of information about the swapper.
It was wonderful to learn about the swappers lives, and I put the bios in files to go with each quilt.
Of course this also meant that I had to cut sort and mail 4000 squares myself – a job which kept me out of mischief for quite some time.
I ended up making my own Millenium quilt with 2000 squares in.
Two Millenium quilts with 1000 squares in each – one for my daughter and one for my son.
And with the odds left over I made three throw sized quilts for my two sisters and my brother so we all had a Millenium Quilt.
There were times when I wished I had never started the swap – but I am so glad I did it now.
In the summer when it is hot we use my Millenium quilt on the bed with just a sheet. It’s lovely and cool.
And if you lift the quilt up when it’s on the bed in summer you can see the colours showing thru at the back of the quilt. It always reminds me of a stain glass window from the back.
And in the winter when it is at it’s coldest my Millenium quilt sits on top of our bed quilt for extra warmth.
I absolutely love my Millenium Quilt and intend to use it until it falls apart at the seams.
It hardly seems possible it was 13 years ago. And of course over time some of the ‘siggys’ signature squares have faded considerably, but that just adds to it's charm I think.
2020 Repairs
By 2020 My Millenium Quilt was showing signs of it age. Some of the Patches were becoming rather Threadbare. So I decided to make some Fabric Hearts to cover this.
Update May 2025
Well it's now 2025 and My Much Loved Millenium Quilt is 25 years old is due for it's second round of repairs.
Have a great weekend
,
Yours in stitches, Joy
