The saying goes, ‘a stitch in time, saves nine’ – but I would like to take a moment to reflect upon the thought of how one single stitch can capture a moment in time, forever.

For centuries now women have sat and sewn. This task – be it for pleasure or work – has provided the opportunity to be still, to reflect and to ponder.

One of my most treasured possessions is a cross stitch sampler that an ancestor of mine completed in 1842 aged nine. I like to wonder what she sat there and thought about as she stitched the delicate design.

I believe that as we sew our thoughts and dreams become an intrinsic part of that piece. It is as if each stitch can tell a story. Within that movement, that simple act of stitching, a thought, an idea, a dream, is captured indefinitely.

The night that I received a phone call telling me that my beloved dad had died very unexpectantly and very suddenly I was sewing. A few weeks later I returned to the same quilt and found the needle poised in exactly the position I had left it as I went to answer the phone. Within that one stitch my life had changed forever. The stitch before represented my happy life before that fateful night, and the one after embodied my huge loss.

Although it was painful I managed to carry on and finish the quilt. That piece carries with it such a story and such a pivotal moment in my time. If the quilt could speak it would tell of the tears I shed and the endless memories that made me smile.

That one stitch encapsulating a moment in time …