I took up knitting twenty years ago when I was at uni, because I had undiagnosed ADHD, and fidget toys hadn't been invented yet. Around the same time I moved into a sharehouse with a friend of mine, and a third girl I knew slightly - Penelope. Penelope (NOT Penny) was a few years older than me, but we met around the time that ceases to matter. Penelope was remarkably forthright, strong, and unapologetically herself; she was the only football player amongst us nerds, and the only straight girl on her football team. She liked beer, Jane Austen, sport, and tapestry. We spent many afternoons and evenings in our lounge, watching Buffy, me knitting, her with a tapestry working frame on her lap and threads spread out next to her.

When Penelope was nearly 30 she bought herself a present. A beautifully detailed tapestry pattern for “À Mon Seul Désir," the sixth tapestry in the Lady and the Unicorn Collection. Not full size, but still massive. The salesperson remarked it would take 10 years to complete.


Penelope wasn’t daunted. She measured the tapestry and divided it into ten columns, then split those columns into twelve rows, and set the goal of one square a month. She started hosting monthly craft sessions at our place. We were avoiding the word “bitch” at the time, so instead of a “Stitch and Bitch” we had “Crafternoons.” I’d knit, another friend had cross-stitch, another made jewellery, and so on. We invited our own maker friends, slowly they became mutual friends, and we formed a tight-knit (no pun intended) group.

Life kept moving. We left the sharehouse. She bought a place. I moved in with my boyfriend. She changed jobs. I graduated. People finished PhDs, wrote books, moved away and back. Some stopped coming to Crafternoon. New people joined. Penelope became an aunt. I got married. She travelled. I had a baby, then moved to the country. We kept meeting, not every month for everyone, but often enough. The tapestry grew clearer. We celebrated both when Penelope reached and passed the tent in the middle.

At thirty, Penelope had bouts of breathlessness. Tests found a tumour. She was young and determined, and she fought. Surgery removed what it could. She changed her lifestyle and priorities and learned to live with it. She accepted she might not see old age, but with care and luck she had a good while left. She stopped planning for retirement. She travelled. She still worked hard at jobs that interested her. For years it was easy to forget she was sick.

A week before one Crafternoon she messaged our group. She was being headhunted for a role overseas, so she wanted to reserve time during the Crafternoon to hash out the pros and cons. I arrived ready to tell her we would miss her, but she should go. Instead, she told us she’d gone to discuss transferring to a hospital near the potential new job with her medical team, and they’d discovered the tumour had grown, and spread. 

There was no new job. Soon, there was no old job. She started chemo. She lost weight and energy. Still, Crafternoons continued at her house. She sat on the couch with the tapestry in its working frame. Denial is powerful. I remember thinking the working frame looked bigger and heavier, without following that thought through.

One Sunday she rang while I wrangled my kids at the market. She was stopping chemo. She was entering palliative care. She wanted one last Crafternoon at her place in a week. I said I’d be there. Unfortunately, she declined rapidly and a few days later she was rushed to hospital. I visited when I could. I brought my knitting, and saw the other crafters as we drifted in and out. We watched The Great British Sewing Bee and kept our conversation light. She told us Ben, (her nickname for the tapestry after someone once called it “The Tapestry of Glory,”) was at the framers. I was thrilled she had finished. Then I saw it:

Sometimes life hands you a symbol that would feel heavy-handed in a novel. Ben was not finished. It was beautiful, immense, and incomplete. It was a perfect metaphor for the life of a focused, ambitious maker cut short. 

The salesperson said the tapestry would take Penelope ten years when she bought it for herself as a thirtieth birthday present. That tapestry is now roughly 9/10ths complete, and it always will be roughly 9/10ths complete. Penelope died aged 39. 

Obviously, I didn’t design this collection - that was, as always, the magnificent Tasha. One reason I jumped to work with Jubly Umph is how Tasha’s pins land with people. They are relatable, and still individual. As soon as I saw this Crafty Collection (especially the needle minders) I thought of Penelope. I wanted to buy one for her. Obsessively Making Stuff would have suited. So Many Projects So Little Time, too, because Ben was rarely her only work in progress. Maybe I Make Therefore I Am.

The “Fuck Cancer” pin we did earlier this year (which was awesome, don’t get me wrong!) reminded me of how Penelope died; this collection reminds me of how she lived.

Getting this collection ready to launch has nudged me back to my needles. I am visiting craft shops again, planning the next project. 

I might even start a Stitch and Bitch near home, or a Crafternoon.