A Dunoon-based creative has captured the story of lockdown through a unique and deeply personal project made up of 52 handcrafted, quilted postcards.
The initiative began with a small group of crafters before spreading across the country, with similar groups forming in different communities.
In 2020, Dunoon resident Rabina Wilson joined a local group set up at Dunoon Burgh Hall. The idea was simple but ambitious: to create a postcard-sized piece of work each week for all 52 weeks of the year.
Despite the name, the postcards were never intended for posting. Instead, participants were encouraged to experiment with different creative mediums including clay, crochet and glass, while others chose more unusual ideas such as collections of felt animals.
Plans for workshops throughout the year were quickly derailed by the arrival of the Covid-19 pandemic, with only one clay workshop taking place before restrictions forced the group to stop meeting altogether.
While the wider project faded away during lockdown, Rabina Wilson continued on alone from home, producing a new quilted postcard every single week.
She said the hardest part of the process was constantly coming up with fresh ideas, often drawing inspiration from annual events and celebrations including Easter, St Patrick’s Day, St Andrew’s Day and Christmas.
Rabina Wilson’s work gradually evolved into a stitched diary of lockdown life, documenting many of the moments and emotions experienced during the pandemic.
Themes included isolation, virtual hugs, social distancing, face masks, virtual Cowal Games and the eventual return of sleepovers as restrictions eased.
Rabina Wilson also added commemorative stamps from the relevant week to the back of many postcards, helping anchor the project in a specific moment in time.
Reflecting on the experience, Rabina Wilson described the project as both therapeutic and demanding during a period when normal life had ground to a halt.
She said: “I do miss doing it. It really did give me something to do back then because you had to keep up with it. You couldn’t just say, ‘Oh well, I’ll do it next week,’ because the next week was already on top of you.
“I guess I inadvertently ended up with a massive project on my hands during lockdown.”
Rabina Wilson, who has been quilting for around 50 years, said the collection now acts as a powerful reminder of a period many people are still processing.
She said: “It’s like a document of Covid. It serves as a proper analysis of what happened during lockdown because I still don’t think people have fully come to grips with a lot of it.”
Although another organiser later offered her a kit to begin a new stitched postcard project, Rabina Wilson admitted she felt one year was enough.
“I thought no, I’m not doing any more,” she said. “I would have thought the group would have rejoined after lockdown, but it never started up again.”
Now complete, the collection stands as a vivid and highly personal record of an extraordinary moment in history — stitched together one week at a time.
