Andrew's Memory Quilt
In 2022, 3 years after losing him, I decided it was time to do something with Andrew’s clothes. I didn’t recognise many of them as having any memories attached to them, so they were easily handed over to a charity shop.
However, there were quite a few that screamed Andrew and many that I have photographs of him wearing. These were so precious and it was difficult to know what to do with them apart from leaving them in a drawer. I decided that they needed to be cherished and displayed in a memory quilt.
I had previously made a good friend of Rebecca Jackson through a bereavement to suicide group. She lost her daughter a few years before I lost Andrew. She was in the process of opening an Arts Centre opposite Bury steam train station called The Big Fandango. Her passion is textiles and sewing and she wished to encourage those affected by suicide to come together and heal through crafting and making.
She ran a project encouraging those affected by suicide to each make a square with some connection to those that they have lost. Each square was sewn into a collaborative memory quilt. The quilt is amazing and made me cry the first time I saw it in person. There’s so much love and creativity gone into it and a poignant reminder of how many people have lost and continue to lose someone by suicide.
The Greater Manchester Memory quilt inspired me to bring Andrew’s clothes together as a quilt, backed with his favourite duvet-quilt cover. I sewed most of the memory quilt at the Big Fandango, on a Thursday morning, being surrounded by a fabulous bunch of quilters and caring ladies. They let me talk if I wanted to or just hide away if I needed to. Cutting into his clothes was just a necessary part of the process – it felt ok at the time but as I am writing I can’t believe I did it so boldly – I’m in tears writing about it.
I learnt a lot about neatly presenting the sewing, crazy quilting, binding, and many other techniques that the others were learning as I sewed away on my project. On the day I put in the last stitch I felt proud and amazed at what I had achieved. It took at least 9 months to finish.
Now the quilt lies folded over a chair in my lounge and I find it hard to touch. One day it’ll be proudly displayed on a wall or bed but for now, it’s finished and cherished – but a stark reminder of who I have lost and how much he was loved.