As a child I showed little interest in my mum’s sewing skills. After she died, I realised what I’d missed out on | Nova Weetman

Mum made most of her clothes until she hit high school and begged for a pair of shop-bought skinny jeans .

She filled her wardrobe with patchwork skirts, home-knitted vests and a dark-green corduroy coat that I would kill for now.

She learned to sew and knit out of necessity, out of poverty.

She knitted so many jumpers in one winter that arthritis appeared in both her hands.

And buried under the piles of clothes she had made them was the patchwork skirt she’d sewn me when I was 10 . Liberty print squares she’d picked up somewhere cheap and sewn together in a mishmash of colours and patterns. I held it up to my waist, wondering if there was some way that I could still wear it, and wishing I’d listened when she tried to teach me how to sew..