Michael's "Maineman" quilt

My sister refers to her partner, Michael, as her Maineman. It only takes a few minutes with them to understand why. They came west in July for a visit and we had a great time that passed all too quickly -- wonderful conversation, lots of laughs, great connection.

Soon after they returned to Maine, Michael began an extraordinarily difficult course of treatment for a recently diagnosed illness. As hard as the bad news hit us here, I felt even worse for my sister and Michael. I wanted to be with them -- talking, hugging, laughing, doing whatever comes up whenever people are faced with processing some harsh new reality. But they're in Maine and we're in California and I came to realize that it was also a very private time for them. Yet I couldn't ignore the pressing need in me to "do something". What could I do that would assuage my feelings, reach across 3,000 miles and provide them with comfort? Make a quilt - of course!

I checked in with my sis about a couple of details -- like favorite colors. Michael likes dark greens and dark blues. Even though I didn't find a range of greens or blues that I liked, I did find some great reds and lovely indigos at New Pieces Quilt Shop. Those deep colors, plus the light patterns (on very soft cotton), worked up in a very nice quilt top.

Here's the finished quilt spread out on a queen-size bed. The pieced top wasn't as big as I wanted (gotta be big enough to wrap around Michael), so I added four border strips to increase it's size.

I machine quilted it, using stitch-in-the-ditch on the pieced top and around the borders. Then I quilted free-motion stars all around the border. It took about three weeks from start to finish.

The close-up shows the great fabrics I found at New Pieces. The dark blues are Japanese prints, the reds are an assortment of cotton prints and the light fabrics are either batiks or a wonderfully soft cotton. I used a wool batting and a super, soft cotton for the backing. It's all machine washable.

Here's a corner shot showing the free-motion stars sprinkled around. It also shows the borders and binding.

Michael loves the quilt and uses it everyday. That tells me it was a good gift for him. What I hadn't expected to discover was what a remarkable gift it was for me: the process of designing this quilt and watching it unfold fed the creative beast inside me; spending large blocks of time thinking about Michael and Nancy and hoping for the best for them helped me work through much of my own difficult feelings; and realizing that the connection I'd felt when they were visiting California could stretch and strengthen all the way across the country was profoundly comforting.