Pandemic Porch Quilt Show, Days 11- 12: A Batik Chandelier and a Millenium Quilt

Day #11: "Chandelier, Shaken"

This quilt is improv paper pieced, using batik fabrics.

Closer: 

Much closer:

A little to the left: 

Finally, from the back - I like the way the light creates a stained glass effect!

It was pure fun, with minimal measuring. The techniques I used (though not this actual pattern) are in my booklet, "Modern Paper Piece Log Cabin Triangles," in my etsy shop, CathyPstudio, here.

UPDATE: This quilt was just awarded Best Use of Color in the Innovative category, in Mancuso's Visuals #2 Pacific International Quilt Festival. All the winners are here.

Day #12: A Millenium Quilt

This large quilt (74" x 93", it almost hit the ceiling) is made of 2,000 squares, cut 2.5".

A little closer:

Center: 

Backstory: In the late 90s, a huge fad emerged among online quilters: Millenium quilts, to be made from 2000 different pieces of fabric. People set up swaps, and packs of squares were also sold online. 

When I first read about this fad, I thought, "What a terrible idea!" But after a couple of days, possessed by the audacity and community of it, I jumped in. 

I'd been quilting for almost a decade, so I had a significant fabric stash. I chopped 2.5" squares out of everything. Then I went to my upholstery sample books; old clothing; and basically, any fabric I could scrounge anywhere. 

Even then, I was still about 500 fabrics short. So I gave up on my dream of not repeating fabrics, and filled the corners in with squares cut from two different fabrics that were printed with millenium-related words in different languages. These are the mostly black fabric and the white-and-black fabric below. 

I was well into the project when I started reading that some quilters were using this project to affirm their Christian faith, which makes a great deal of sense. But since I'm not Christian, and I didn't want to leave my descendants wondering, I put the Hebrew calendar year - 5760 - along the bottom, and stitched into it an essay explaining the quilt and the millennium mishegoss that was taking place at that time! 

You can't lay out 2000 squares this size on any design wall smaller than the side of a barn. So I (and pretty much everyone who made one of these), constructed the quilt in blocks. Each of my blocks are 5 squares x 5 squares, totaling about 10 inches after stitching. Within each block, I placed the lightest square in one corner, moving to the darkest in the diagonally-opposite corner. To honor the traditional log cabin arrangement, I placed a red square in every center. I set the blocks in rows of 8 across, and columns 10 down -  that's 80 blocks, times 25 squares, gives you a 2000-square quilt that measured 72" x 93"!

The back features a whole lot of weird stuff, including this inexplicable M&M millenium fabric....

...which posed the profound question, "Is it Over Yet?" There are also a couple of delightful commemorative tea towels, from a trip we'd recently taken to London:

...and a tea towel from a sweet little amusement park we'd brought our little boy to in England, Paulton's Park. 

Plus this flea market find, curtains showing movie stars of the mid-20th century.

Until my pandemic porch quilt show, I had never photographed  this quilt flat before. The most I've ever seen of it at one time is on a full-size bed. Seeing the entire thing gave me a completely different sense of what it looks like! That's one more reason you should consider hosting your own porch quilt show! 

[The first installment of my porch quilt show, Days 1-5 is here. 

Days 6-10 are here.

The next installment is here. 

If you'd like to keep up with the show in real time, I'm posting it on Instagram, at https://www.instagram.com/cathy.perlmutter/]