For Suzanne

Last week our precious Morag's mum, Suzanne, died.

I didn't know Suzanne, having only met her once, but Morag is absolutely one of the most special people in our lives, so our hearts were broken for her. I felt so helpless, being so far away. I wanted to hug her, I wanted to cry with her, I wanted to just hold her hand, if that's what she wanted. But I couldn't. So instead I started stitching.

The day before Suzanne died, I'd come across an amazing collaborative crafting project called The Magic Feather Project, which aims to gather simple, appliqued stones from anyone who wants to spend some time stitching these simple, beautiful little gems. How beautiful, I thought, to craft something with hundreds of people from all over the world, to send something out to an unknown destination. It's kind of like having kids. You craft them, you grow them, and then, at some point, you send them out into the world, to do beautiful and wonderful things.

'Morag', 'Suzanne', 'Zeva'

The stitching I did to feed my need to 'do' something for Morag resulted in these 3 little stones, 2 of which will be sent out into the world, to join other stones and, hopefully, make someone, somewhere feel happy and warm. They were all stitched from a single, very old, hand-embroidered serviette, so the stones themselves are rich with patterns and textures, but almost invisible against their samey-white backgrounds.

The 'Suzanne' stone will be framed for Morag to keep. The 'Morag' and 'Zeva' stones will become a part of a bigger project, my tiny gift to the world in honour of Suzanne's immense gift to us and others lucky enough to be touched by Morag and Zeva.

The Suzanne stone