This is my contribution for the ByYouTapestry, a project launched by a London community arts group Stitches in Time. They invited people to stitch their daily life story during the Coronavirus pandemic. The plan is that the individual pieces will be joined together to form a giant, historic textile story – The ByYouTapestry.

My piece features my laptop –I find it quite difficult to be sitting in front of a screen teaching as opposed to being in my classroom, and my cat Jaxx loves draping himself over it whenever I’m trying to write emails or plan a lesson!  WhatsApp and Zoom icons – these are the apps I have become to rely on to see my family and friends faces.

My sewing machine- it’s usually used to draw with and create my artwork, but has, since lockdown, been used more conventionally to make scrubs bags for the NHS.

Yoga – helps to temporarily remove myself from the headlines, as does a gin and tonic. And the toilet roll- because…well…what was that about!!

I have really enjoyed making this piece; it was quite a different way of working for me, combining applique, machine stitch and hand stitching.  I used colours similar to the original Bayeux Tapestry.

I’m so looking forward to seeing the whole Tapestry with lots of different people’s experiences and stories of lockdown 2020.

To join in use these instruction for the template and rules on how to create your own.