Grief 1 is the quilt I made after my mother’s death in 2008 to show the journey of grief that I was already travelling and which still stretched ahead. The image of the quilt came into my mind between her death and her funeral.

It moves through shades of grey, bordered by two columns of black. I used coloured thread for the quilting to express that even in grief there can be moments of light.

Grief 2 is the quilt I made after my father’s death in 2015. The image also came to me between his death and his funeral.

A few weeks after the funeral I began the planning and started work. I used a combination of black and shades of grey and purple – the colours Victorians wore to express the stages of mourning. I also mixed the colours to show that grieving is not a smooth or straight journey. Within the depths of mourning there can be moments of light and at later stages the ache of grief can suddenly return.