Things become precious when we choose to keep them. For me, one of those things was a small collection of quilting fabric collected from my early days of motherhood. It followed me in a box for 9 years, through 5 house moves, carrying hope in its unfinished state. It was the right time for it to finally be given new purpose.
As a little girl, I spent most of my days in the care of my maternal grandmother, my mama. I followed her everywhere like a shadow. I remember sitting amongst my grandaunts and mama, intrigued by their lively gossip in Baba Malay and secretly pleased by the fact that they had allowed me to listen in on their ‘inner circle' gossip.
Earlier I wrote about beginning the journey to incorporate the social mission of Eden + Elie into the heart of our business. It has been months in the making, I'm a little late in telling the story.
I liken it to reaching a milestone experience and being too exhausted and caught up in the arrival of the "thing" to produce a coherent account. In this case, the gestation period was almost 3 years.
I come from a family of sewers. My grandmother sewed. My mother sews. My aunt sews and now, I suppose I do too.
When I was 12, I learnt sewing from my grandmother while she was bedridden from cancer. We had a simple embroidery project in school - back in the day when it was considered useful to teach girls needlework (an unrecognisable time in Singapore now).
Aside from the meaning it holds for me, the beauty of my bracelet’s story is that it does not have to bear the weight of lessons learned; it remains light, simple and clear of message. As I slip it back on my wrist, it whispers again: There is always more, there is always different. This journey now, this is the most important.