When I left university I had no clue what to do next. Three years had equipped me for nothing in particular and I didn’t much like the city where I had studied.

When all my contemporaries left to work in banks, I didn’t want to stay. And I didn’t want to work in a bank.

I went home.

Back to my parents’ home, that is. My own friends had moved away, so there wasn’t much social life. I didn’t have a clue what to do with my life. It was not a good time.

I got under my parents’ feet. I hung out with my sister a bit.

And I made a quilt. It was a quilt I had started as a child, and I finished it as just about an adult.

Reading about an heirloom quilt the other day made me think of it. It was absent. Where was it?

By the magic of coincidence, it emerged from a box under the bed on the day I removed the bedroom carpet.

The backing is wool and the moths have feasted. And I forgot – it was once a sofa cover and the cats liked to sit on it.

It has holes. It has dirt.

Luckily my scraps bag has been a lifelong friend. It still contains remnants of that backing fabric.

So I will set to and clean and repair. A stitch in time saves nine.

A mixed feelings quilt, repaired for posterity.