Dr Kate McMillan
Creative endeavours

Shortly after the UK lockdown began, I decided to teach myself how to make quilts. The process of sewing felt reassuring and calming and I suddenly had more time to develop a skill I didn't previously have. I watched a lot of videos on Youtube - mostly made by American housewives who had generously shared their skills. Each quilt will be an X-ray or ultrasound of my children's bodies, symbolising the fragility and precariousness of the human body - something I think that is being felt so intensely by everyone at the moment. Making them into quilts is a gesture of warmth and security, something we are all so desperate to offer to the people we love and our communities at the moment. The first quilt is a scan of my son's jaw, X-rayed some years ago. The image is printed onto silk which forms the top layer of the quilt. Cotton wadding forms the internal layer and the backing is also soft cotton linen. All the layers are quilted together using silk velvet binding. I wanted to use fabrics that felt beautiful against the skin.