‘When the world is dark you can pick a colour and stitch it together,” Rebecca Ní Chonchúir simply says of the therapeutic appeal of quilting.
The Co Wicklow resident describes it as an “active way of being mindful” which has a calming effect on her mind and body.
It is a hobby that’s become a passion for her since her diagnosis with breast cancer in 2019, her subsequent treatment and recovery amid ongoing health issues.
While crafty, she did little sewing until after her beloved mother passed away in 2011. “I grew up in west Kerry and my granny crocheted. My mam went to the Grafton Academy to study sewing, but when she moved to Kerry she didn’t really sew that much,” she recalls. “She taught me how to make a pair of shorts, and back then you would have had to make some of your own clothes. There was always a sewing machine there [at home] and my granny taught me how to use it and I did crochet and knitting.
Rebecca says one of the things she regrets is that she didn’t sew when her mum was alive, and one of reasons she sews now is because: “I want my children to have things that I have made. They are treasured.”
That link to her mother is continued in her Instagram name The Spinning Wheel, remembering her mother’s shop of the same name.
“I made my first quilt in 2018. I used to sew when the kids went to bed,” she recalls, adding that it took her about four months to finish the first piece after learning the skills from YouTube videos. “It was a way to keep my brain occupied,” she says, after a busy day balancing looking after young children with working as a science teacher.
New passion
Totally enthused with her new passion, she signed up for online courses in a bid to learn more. But after thoroughly enjoying making her first three quilts, Rebecca got devastating news in November of 2019 with a breast cancer diagnosis. She was meeting consultants within days and having chemotherapy shortly afterwards.
Naively, she thought there would be lots of time to make more quilts during her treatment. “Obviously I didn’t know what was ahead of me. I just thought it was a like a dose of antibiotics and that I’ll be back in school in six months – ‘it’ll be grand’. They were like ‘no, you’ll need to take a year out’. I was completely oblivious. I wanted to be the person who bounced back quickly,” remembers Rebecca.
“On the way to the MRI I bought a second-hand sewing machine so that I could do more. Up to that I was working on a machine I got in Argos.”
Rebecca Ní Chonchúir pictured with a quilt made when her online group met up in person for the first time last year.
However, it didn’t come out of the box until chemo was finished the following April, when she was able to complete a half-finished wedding quilt for a friend.
“You get a fright and I thought ‘Oh my God, I better make a quilt for every family member I know because I’m not invincible’,” the mother-of-two says candidly of the period after her treatment.
Finding her quilting tribe on Instagram, Rebecca connected with other quilters all over the world and even joined groups where she sent people she didn’t know a block [of material] and they’d send you one in return.
While posting her material one day in Ballyfad, a local lady recommended that she meet up with the local ICA. “I showed them my quilts and they were really impressed. I was making a lot of quilts at that time because it was helping me to process [my diagnosis]. I was keeping my hands busy so my mind wouldn’t go crazy.”
Rebecca later went back to school part-time but stayed quilting because the whole process was so therapeutic.
“I think fabric has an amazing way of having memory attached to it. Patchwork [quilting] is creating memory, but also feeding the tactile nature [of fabric] and it taps into creativity that you didn’t know you had.
Rebecca Ní Chonchúir pictured with her dog at home in Wicklow. \Elisha Clarke
“It’s an active way of being mindful. You’re at rest. I think that helped me because my body was at rest but my brain was completely engrossed in how the hell am I meant to put a two and half inch square next to a five inch square.”
There is a slogan on Rebecca’s Instagram – Make time to make something. It’s an idea she fully subscribes to and feels the benefit of, saying anyone interested should get a sewing machine and do courses. “If your body is healing from cancer and you can’t run a marathon or you don’t want to eat Taytos and watch telly – this is a way you can keep your hands busy,” she says.
“We need to use our hands because dexterity is in decline. That’s a fact. There is great satisfaction in using your hands [to make something]. You can’t scroll on your phone if you are using your hands,” she points out.
There is a “different dopamine rush” in making and learning new skills – and it builds confidence. At the end of it, you have something to treasure and be proud of.
“It’s a lot more than just sewing pieces of fabric together. There is a lot of healing and talking for women. It’s proper Meitheal and a real community, all brought together with threads.
“There are so many metaphors of threads connecting people or stitching your life back together.
“There are also lovely stories connected to making. And making is being lost, the craft. It has to be learned and treasured,” Rebecca maintains.
With family and work commitments taking her away from attending groups, she decided to create her own community via Zoom, and she now has quilters from all over Ireland, UK and America joining her every Monday night.
“I was thinking there must be others out there who would be interested and it is bound to be beneficial. Twenty people joined as soon I mentioned it on Instagram. They were people I didn’t know, but I do now,” she says, laughing.
Rebecca Ní Chonchúir has turned her pastime into a passion project. \Elisha Clarke
She has a special word of thanks for her partner Frank who helped with the technical aspects of setting up a website and the group. Each member pays a subscription, which Rebecca compares to the price of a magazine, and when Irish Country Living caught up with her they were working on a pattern called Christmas Glimmers.
Friendship and learning
The group is all about sharing knowledge but she also treasures the friendships with fellow quilters.
“It’s like the back of Mass, everyone is chatting and learning,” the Arklow resident says of the online group, chuckling. “Sometimes there’s just silence because everyone is sewing and other times they are venting,” she adds.
“Sewing helps me because it passes the time as my body heals. That’s it in a nutshell. The people are so nice, I haven’t met a horrible quilter yet.
“We’ll have another physical meet up [of the online group] in March and I suppose with my health, I had to step back from teaching, so it’s just hard. Recovery after cancer is difficult even though it’s five years.
“Spending time quilting is good for my soul. You need people to help you.
Some in the group have gone through it and that’s how they found quilting.
Everybody has a story.”
See thequiltcircle.com or @spinningwheelquilts on Instagram.
‘When the world is dark you can pick a colour and stitch it together,” Rebecca Ní Chonchúir simply says of the therapeutic appeal of quilting.
The Co Wicklow resident describes it as an “active way of being mindful” which has a calming effect on her mind and body.
It is a hobby that’s become a passion for her since her diagnosis with breast cancer in 2019, her subsequent treatment and recovery amid ongoing health issues.
While crafty, she did little sewing until after her beloved mother passed away in 2011. “I grew up in west Kerry and my granny crocheted. My mam went to the Grafton Academy to study sewing, but when she moved to Kerry she didn’t really sew that much,” she recalls. “She taught me how to make a pair of shorts, and back then you would have had to make some of your own clothes. There was always a sewing machine there [at home] and my granny taught me how to use it and I did crochet and knitting.
Rebecca says one of the things she regrets is that she didn’t sew when her mum was alive, and one of reasons she sews now is because: “I want my children to have things that I have made. They are treasured.”
That link to her mother is continued in her Instagram name The Spinning Wheel, remembering her mother’s shop of the same name.
“I made my first quilt in 2018. I used to sew when the kids went to bed,” she recalls, adding that it took her about four months to finish the first piece after learning the skills from YouTube videos. “It was a way to keep my brain occupied,” she says, after a busy day balancing looking after young children with working as a science teacher.
New passion
Totally enthused with her new passion, she signed up for online courses in a bid to learn more. But after thoroughly enjoying making her first three quilts, Rebecca got devastating news in November of 2019 with a breast cancer diagnosis. She was meeting consultants within days and having chemotherapy shortly afterwards.
Naively, she thought there would be lots of time to make more quilts during her treatment. “Obviously I didn’t know what was ahead of me. I just thought it was a like a dose of antibiotics and that I’ll be back in school in six months – ‘it’ll be grand’. They were like ‘no, you’ll need to take a year out’. I was completely oblivious. I wanted to be the person who bounced back quickly,” remembers Rebecca.
“On the way to the MRI I bought a second-hand sewing machine so that I could do more. Up to that I was working on a machine I got in Argos.”
Rebecca Ní Chonchúir pictured with a quilt made when her online group met up in person for the first time last year.
However, it didn’t come out of the box until chemo was finished the following April, when she was able to complete a half-finished wedding quilt for a friend.
“You get a fright and I thought ‘Oh my God, I better make a quilt for every family member I know because I’m not invincible’,” the mother-of-two says candidly of the period after her treatment.
Finding her quilting tribe on Instagram, Rebecca connected with other quilters all over the world and even joined groups where she sent people she didn’t know a block [of material] and they’d send you one in return.
While posting her material one day in Ballyfad, a local lady recommended that she meet up with the local ICA. “I showed them my quilts and they were really impressed. I was making a lot of quilts at that time because it was helping me to process [my diagnosis]. I was keeping my hands busy so my mind wouldn’t go crazy.”
Rebecca later went back to school part-time but stayed quilting because the whole process was so therapeutic.
“I think fabric has an amazing way of having memory attached to it. Patchwork [quilting] is creating memory, but also feeding the tactile nature [of fabric] and it taps into creativity that you didn’t know you had.
Rebecca Ní Chonchúir pictured with her dog at home in Wicklow. \Elisha Clarke
“It’s an active way of being mindful. You’re at rest. I think that helped me because my body was at rest but my brain was completely engrossed in how the hell am I meant to put a two and half inch square next to a five inch square.”
There is a slogan on Rebecca’s Instagram – Make time to make something. It’s an idea she fully subscribes to and feels the benefit of, saying anyone interested should get a sewing machine and do courses. “If your body is healing from cancer and you can’t run a marathon or you don’t want to eat Taytos and watch telly – this is a way you can keep your hands busy,” she says.
“We need to use our hands because dexterity is in decline. That’s a fact. There is great satisfaction in using your hands [to make something]. You can’t scroll on your phone if you are using your hands,” she points out.
There is a “different dopamine rush” in making and learning new skills – and it builds confidence. At the end of it, you have something to treasure and be proud of.
“It’s a lot more than just sewing pieces of fabric together. There is a lot of healing and talking for women. It’s proper Meitheal and a real community, all brought together with threads.
“There are so many metaphors of threads connecting people or stitching your life back together.
“There are also lovely stories connected to making. And making is being lost, the craft. It has to be learned and treasured,” Rebecca maintains.
With family and work commitments taking her away from attending groups, she decided to create her own community via Zoom, and she now has quilters from all over Ireland, UK and America joining her every Monday night.
“I was thinking there must be others out there who would be interested and it is bound to be beneficial. Twenty people joined as soon I mentioned it on Instagram. They were people I didn’t know, but I do now,” she says, laughing.
Rebecca Ní Chonchúir has turned her pastime into a passion project. \Elisha Clarke
She has a special word of thanks for her partner Frank who helped with the technical aspects of setting up a website and the group. Each member pays a subscription, which Rebecca compares to the price of a magazine, and when Irish Country Living caught up with her they were working on a pattern called Christmas Glimmers.
Friendship and learning
The group is all about sharing knowledge but she also treasures the friendships with fellow quilters.
“It’s like the back of Mass, everyone is chatting and learning,” the Arklow resident says of the online group, chuckling. “Sometimes there’s just silence because everyone is sewing and other times they are venting,” she adds.
“Sewing helps me because it passes the time as my body heals. That’s it in a nutshell. The people are so nice, I haven’t met a horrible quilter yet.
“We’ll have another physical meet up [of the online group] in March and I suppose with my health, I had to step back from teaching, so it’s just hard. Recovery after cancer is difficult even though it’s five years.
“Spending time quilting is good for my soul. You need people to help you.
Some in the group have gone through it and that’s how they found quilting.
Everybody has a story.”
See thequiltcircle.com or @spinningwheelquilts on Instagram.
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