I love sewing. I like to think I’m ok at it, but I’m certainly not good. The thing I like most about sewing though is that I don’t really need to be any good, because I’m either making costumes, which only need to look good from a distance, and need to fit a wide variety of people, and probably need to be sewn together in the box office on opening night. Or, I’m making nick-nacky crafty things for round my house, which don’t need to be “good” per se.

For months now I’ve been working on a huge project to convert my various show hoodies, collected over 7 years at university, into a warm enormous patchwork blanket. I’ve meticulously sliced them all up, arranged them with the most important ones in the middle, edged it with silk ribbon, and backed the whole thing with purple fleece (purple being the brand colour of the Union, me being tacky).

I was lucky enough to be gifted a couple of huge cushion pads as well, by a friend who had no real use for them, which was fantastic because it’s allowed me to use the fronts of the hoodies as well, in another patchwork design (this one primarily of my name, how egocentric). The second I  covered in a lovely piece of aubergine cotton, and finished with some wooden buttons which I bought today.

It’s been a lovely project, and I’m super-pleased with the results, because things like this are so much nicer  when they are full of meaning and sentiment.