After having successfully shipped my most recent quilt all the way to my client Sigrid in Tasmania, I can officially say that my work has made its way across the world. I feel very lucky to have been found by such a lovely person from so far away. It certainly supports the idea that grief connects us all, no matter where we are.

Sigrid’s partner Alistair died unexpectedly in 2023 while Sigrid was away visiting family in the UK. For Sigrid, she had not only lost her beloved, but someone she had miraculously reconnected with after being childhood friends. In our initial correspondence, Sigrid shared the longer version of how they circled back together as well as an unbelievable account of Alistair’s world travels (he visited all seven continents) and his lifelong passions and skills, of which there were many.

We initially discussed combining as many symbols as possible in the quilt to represent his experiences. I could feel Sigrid wanting to hold on to the entire scope of who he meant to her. Visually, though, that can be a challenge and can often feel a bit busy. Knowing that both she and Alistair were originally from the UK, I asked if Alistair had any Scottish heritage, and if so, could I do an interpretation of his family clan tartan. She loved that idea and sent me her favorite tartan from his family’s group – this one being the MacPhail family ancient hunting tartan of the clan Chattan.

As a way to also honor Sigrid’s wish to include some symbology of other aspects of Alistair’s life, I suggested I create a “library” of nine symbols that would be appliquéd and sewn into a nine-patch at the center of the quilt back, essentially creating a two-sided quilt. (more on that later)

But first, I needed to see the palette of colors and patterns I had to work with – lots of blue and some green for the tartan, and a nice array of khaki, browns, and black for the back.

Here are a pair of blue overalls from Alistair’s diving days.

I began with the tartan side of the quilt and was happy to have plenty of fabric to use for the larger areas of the design.

It’s always great to be able to incorporate plaid fabric into a tartan pattern.

I love the boldness of this red plaid against the blues and greens.

The black and white plaid also worked well with the solid black border.

When the tartan top was finished, I turned my attention to the quilt back that would include the symbols. I had nine symbols sketched out that would be sewn into a nine-patch at the center of the back. The symbols represented things like Alistair’s love of diving, sailing, motorbike riding, hiking, camping, stars and the universe, and compass navigation.

Here I laid out the colors and fabrics I thought would look good adjacent to one another.

So first came the block grounds.

And then the individual symbols. This one is derived from the front view of a diving helmet.

This is a symbol of a compass which Alistair used all the time.

Once all the symbol blocks were sewn together, I patch-worked the rest of the back with the khaki and brown shirts, throwing in little bits of red and other plaids here and there.

I found this little motorbike embroidery on one of the shirts and pieced it into one of the panels. Alistair had gone on an epic two-year motorbike journey that took him all over Australia, North America, and Europe.

Here is the final quilt back.

And here is the final tartan front, followed by a detail.

To Sigrid, I have to send a big shout out for trusting me AND the postal service fairies for keeping watch over everything traveling to and from Oregon and Tasmania. It all worked!