A guest at my table - Ruby

The image which we portray to the outside world is largely of our own making. It can be how we see ourselves, or the person we believe ourselves to be, or what we want others to believe about us. There is nothing wrong in all this - we all dress up and play a part every day of our lives, whether we realise it or not.

When I first saw Ruby I was so transfixed by the multitude of colour and texture of her clothes, her rich velvet scarves, auburn hair and startlingly green eyes that I thought she must surely be one of the most interesting people I'd ever meet. She was probably in her later 50s, rosy cheeked and quite a large lady in all directions, but it was difficult to tell under all those layers of clothing. She dressed to please herself and the clothes themselves owed more to Vintage dressing-up box style than any high street chain store. She wore jewel-coloured silks and lace and velvet and leather all together; the colours toning and contrasting with each other. I suppose it was simply an extension of her day job which, (when she wasn't caring for her elderly mother), was in making handmade quilts for commission. She supplemented her carers allowance with a day course which she taught at the local college one morning a week. It was her get-out-of-jail card, she said. But mostly work had to fit around her caring responsibilities, which made having a life difficult.

As the only one of her siblings who wasn't married with a family it had rather been expected that she would give up her secretarial job and look after her mum as she got weaker and her condition worsened. She wasn't resentful of this exactly, she said, as she loved her mum dearly, but the broken nights took their toll on her sense of humour as there was simply no let up. Sometimes, she told me, when her sister came over to visit, she just slept. Her sister Annie would take their mum out in the wheelchair for a couple of hours and she would put last night's stinking bedding in the wash, take the phone off the hook and go to bed. She was supposed to be working or taking some time out for herself but sleep seemed more important. A carer's life is often a lonely one, relentless and thankless. She was supposed to be going to a support group with other carers but couldn't actually fathom up the energy to get there.

All this seemed a mile from the Ruby who greeted us so enthusiastically each week on a Tuesday.This Ruby was very upbeat  and exuberant. Her one great love was colour. She loved to open draw upon drawer and throw fabric across the table, and find two or three others that would give exactly the effect she required. Perhaps it would be a corner of a ploughed field and the tones would be in old gold and nougat. Or greens against a hedge where the sun cast a shadow of almost inky black.

We were making a communal quilt which was to be auctioned for an overseas charity, alongside the single bed quilts which we were all making to take home. I was making one for my daughter Hannah in shades of blue and pink, as she shared a bedroom with her younger brother William. Each week we were given homework to finish which was a block in a different style or pattern - like a living book of quilt designs which would week-on-week mount up to the finished quilt.

Sewing had never been my thing. Ever since Miss Bingham had made us sew what looked to me like maternity smocks at the age of eleven at Buxton Girls School (it was 1976), I'd gone right off the whole idea. And found my way to Top Shop. But here, in this old room with its high ceilings, arched windows and plan chests, an eclectic group of women of all ages met for a few hours each week to unpick the seams of our lives and to sew new ones for posterity on our communal project.

In America, sewing bees were once quite common social occasions which women were 'allowed' to go to. There is something in the making of stuff that loosens the tongue. Perhaps the concentration takes away any awkwardness or shyness. Either way, it has a profound effect on conversation. Things are said that would never otherwise have been aired in public. I wouldn't have learnt so much about the frustrations and numbness of Ruby's other life if she'd been teaching and I'd been listening. But in the act of making all manner of things come out of the woodwork and are woven into the weft of the cloth.

This is the Ruby I am waiting for now. She is late and the dinner is getting cold. To me she is always dressed like a most splendid Christmas tree, yet I'm sure at home it's a different story. There is lot of hands-on physical stuff involved. These are her glad rags which she saves for Tuesdays and brightens up all our lives. She throws stardust into the fire to make it crackle, and we all leave, a different set of characters to the ones who came in. I know it is as much therapy for her as it is for us, but I do hope that someone can bring a bit of sparkle to her life as she so generously gives to others.