Tracy Chevalier on how quilting brought her a sense of calm

Ten years ago I decided to write a novel about a 19th-century Quaker who emigrates from Dorset to Ohio and works to help slaves escape to freedom. I wanted to include in The Last Runaway (2013) an activity both English and American women did in their spare time, and landed on quilting. I could barely sew a button on but decided that to write accurately about this longstanding craft, I must learn to do it myself. I took a class, discovered that I loved it, and have been making quilts ever since.

There are many different quilt styles, from traditional patchwork to modern art quilts made by the likes of Tracey Emin and Grayson Perry. I love the combination of beauty and practicality, and how quilts are imbued with the maker, literally absorbing their blood, sweat and tears. My favourite style is the colourful, rough-and-ready quilts made from everyday clothing by African American women in Gees Bend, Alabama.

Many quilters use sewing machines to piece together the top and quilt it. I am part of the slower movement, though – I don’t have a machine but sew it all by hand. I find stitching therapeutic. If I’m upset or anxious, the repetitive movement and focus on one tiny thing – a needle going in and out of fabric – soothes me. Quilting also pushes me to use different aesthetic muscles from writing, like doing yoga after running.

In my novel A Single Thread (2019), my heroine gains similar satisfaction from embroidering kneelers for Winchester Cathedral. Her teacher, Louisa Pesel, was a real person who organised the Winchester Cathedral broderers, and also taught shell-shocked First World War soldiers to embroider as therapy. During the Covid-19 lockdown, I found that planning and working on a quilt was one of the most effective and positive ways to keep calm. At night, I replaced watching the news with sewing my quilt, and I slept much better.