I always have so much fun designing the patterns that are offered for free, once a Quilt Dash member completes the Quilt Dash!  This month’s quilt is called “Memories of Mike” and it is a super-special quilt to me.  Mike was my older brother.  When I was 19, I was a pretty lost soul.  I had lived in four different foster homes and had no true sense of myself.  Then, I was offered a job by a cousin, and a chance to live where my brothers had grown up (they were raised by an aunt and uncle after our folks died), I jumped at it.  As we created new sibling relationships as adults, Mike and I became best friends.  I truly ‘found’ myself with that relationship.  Unfortunately, I got a phone call that will forever be etched in my memory – Mike died at the age of 34 – of a brain aneurysm (our dad died of a brain aneurysm at the age of 36 in 1976…Mike’s death was in 1997).

This quilt design has two of the elements that are actually carved on Mike’s headstone – four log cabin blocks and a number of mountain blocks.  Mike’s biggest dream was to move to Colorado and live in a log house on or near mountains.  He never got the chance to do it.  But, now I will always have this special quilt pattern to remind me to dream big!

Please join us at Quilt Dash this month!  If you are not a member, just create an account and start Dashing!  Once you complete the Quilt Dash, you will be emailed an email (within 24 hours) with the link to this free pattern in the body of the email.

Help me keep the Memories of Mike alive!