Weaving the Threads of Life

New Zealander Cassandra Ellis, a quiltmaker who has settled in London, believes a quilt is a great way to mark an occasion, from a birth to a death to a marriage or a divorce. Ellis recently made one for her mother from scraps of her mother’s wedding dress, alongside fabrics collected from countries she would have loved to have visited, before she got too elderly. “I made a quilt for a woman in her late 30s whose husband had left her,” Ellis says. “It symbolised the start of her new life and was mostly pink, a colour he hated.” Best of all, a quilt is the perfect way to recycle fabric and scraps that might go to waste. “It weaves together the threads of your life.” Ellis’ book, Quilt Love, is out now.