STORY:
Got 2000 Squares, Make A Quilt

Millennium craze rubbing off on quilt makers

Quilting conjures up images of grandma sitting in a rocker, spending a year knitting a mosaic of wonderful patterns. The image has changed a bit as we approach the millennium. The rocker has been changed to the computer and the 2000 patches for a millennium quilt is the norm.

Quilters are downloading patterns, swapping fabrics and sharing techniques in chat rooms on the computer. Since millennium quilts need 2000 squares of fabric, which would take a lifetime to produce generations ago, the internet has proved to be a great source of trading.

Dyanne Kruger, a quilter in Vashon Island, Wash., has created a futuristic pattern she calls "Millennia Mania" that uses 2,000 pieces. According to a story in the Miami Herald, Kruger put a photo of a finished quilt square on her Web site, offering quilters the pattern for $6.95. She's sold more than 140 patterns in 12 weeks. See it at: www.primechoice.com/blissbitsdesign/ "It's hard to get 2,000 different fabric pieces for a quilt," Kruger told the Herald. So she turned to the Internet and began swapping quilt pieces. What she has discovered is the internet has become a great source of community for quilters creating millennium quilts.

Editors at Keepsake Quilting, a New Hampshire pattern publisher, saw her pattern on her web site and have contacted her for a future pattern. According to the Herald, Kruger was flattered but her quilt was barely started. Only two blocks and 200 pieces of it existed -- 1,800 scraps and 18 blocks to go.

When word got out that Kruger needed help, her internet buddies came to the rescue. Cyber quilters in California and Arkansas help Kruger and some of her friends to finish the quilt for a camera ready pattern in just 30 days.

According to the Herald, fabric companies are feeding this niche-market frenzy with millennium themes. One fabric has a clock and antique watch motif; another has a numerical 2000 pattern; yet another has "millennium" printed in various languages.

"Mail-order houses are selling kits with 2,000 squares of fabric for millennium quilts. I've been thinking about making one. It would be quite a project", Buskirk told the Herald.

Kathleen Raft of Snoqualmie, Washington now has fabric pockets from all 50 states and 15 foreign countries after searching for fabric squares on the internet. Raft says it takes about 80 swaps to get 2,000 pieces.

Source: Miami Herald

DATE: 7/08/99

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