She sat looking at the bleak view; the rain, bucketing down the windows. She mused that the rain was in as much of a hurry to fall as she was to finish this year.

This year had not been as full and she felt terribly empty. Her usual calendar of coffees, meet ups, Stitcher Group and long leisurely walks had been decimated. Reggie still needed walking but people no longer stopped and chatted, they hurried on and avoided each other – a constant reminder of the world’s fight against an all too often deadly virus. The virus might be unseen but its effects were not. Some of Catherine’s friends were older and more vulnerable. They’d sheltered and shielded but she had not needed to. She had clung to every last piece of activity until they ceased; knocked down one by one like a set of bowling pins.

All the joys of meeting together to sew, share, unpick and unpick some more had been reduced to an occasional zoom meeting with often hilarious results. That time that Marie had left the meeting to visit the bathroom but left her laptop on.. every occasion that Sarah joined online but couldn’t work out how to unmute her microphone and had to resort to writing messages and showing them onscreen (which of course were back to front and we had to work out what they were, often with unintended hilarious results!). Sally often spilled coffee over her laptop as she balanced her Kenco Latte on the trackpad and she was then offline for the rest of the get together. Not everyone did online. As isolated as Catherine felt, she knew she was more fortunate than Reg who crocheted day in and out mostly by himself.

At several points in lockdown, she had felt a creative stifling. A room bursting with fabric and yarn and yet no inclination or motivation to do it. She thought that creative block was too grand a phrase for it and decided it was Covid-gloom; a blackness and bleakness that plagued so many.

On one of these occasions she’d tackled a job that she’d procrastinated doing for a very long time; the cupboard of doom! So named because it was stuffed full of a lifetime of scraps and long forgotten gadgets.

It was a cold and dull day and with as much determination as she could muster, she yanked every single item out of the heaving Aladdin’s cave. She sat amidst a heap of fabric and felt the enormity of the task. Depressing. Why do we hold onto so much stuff she wondered? Having lost herself down the rabbit hole that is Pinterest for many hours, she’d enviously looked at the myriad of immaculate craft rooms, all beautifully colour coded and not a scrap or stray thread to be seen and judgementally concluded that these people must spend their time organising rather than creating.

Jealously she went through each piece, ruthlessly tossing anything that wasn’t larger than a 5 inch square, but out of the corner of her eye, she spied a piece of fabric with a familiar gold design. It was a vintage piece of Liberty fabric. She recalled finding it in a charity shop and nearly tussling with another shopper who had also seen it. She won, of course, but paid extra at the till to help salve her conscience at fighting over a piece of fabric. That patterned beauty had been fashioned into some dolls clothes that went into her daughter’s Christmas present. She wondered whether Poppy still had them.

The next scrap to pique her interest was some psychedelic patterned poly cotton that she’d proudly sewn into a group quilt to be given away to a charity supporting care leavers. She smiled at the thought of this oddly mismatched quilt giving comfort and warmth to someone who needed care, and despite enjoying the memory wondered what she’d do with that piece (polycotton- what WAS she thinking?!). The longer she rummaged, the more occasions came to mind. She smiled, shed more than a few tears and remembered. Gathered around her were more than oddments of material, they were a treasure trove of pictures and conversations in her mind. Memories of things she’d created for people she loved and loved no longer.

Her mojo returned. She set about fashioning these pieces into a project that would bring her comfort and smiles whenever she looked at it. Combining both her children’s old clothes, pieces of curtains from other times in her life and some of her most hoarded valuable fabrics. They would sit, seamed together – uncomfortable bed fellows but the most perfect neighbours. It wasn’t going to be an ‘ugly quilt’, like she’d seen so many others make, it would be a simple lap quilt; ready to keep her warm and soothe her soul.

Catherine’s eyes twinkled at the recollection of the big clearout and looked over at the finished lap quilt. Her cupboard was nearly Pinterest worthy but her project was immeasurably precious.

As she looked at the droplets of water skidding down the glass, it was tempting to feel sad. Her Christmas would be alone as she had to wait until Boxing Day to see her family. But as she looked across at the clashing mix of textiles, she knew it was going to be a perfect Christmas. Reggie would sit with her, cocooned under her small but perfectly formed quilt. They’d relax and watch the Queen’s speech with a gin and box of Quality Street, toasting the NHS and all those clever vaccine-creating scientists. Whenever Catherine was tempted to feel down over the next few weeks, she’d look at her pile of quilted memories and consider just how rich she was to have all those wonderful things to remember.

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