I have just completed a cross stitch project that has helped me to come to terms with the loss of a dear friend who died just over a year ago. Janet was so full of life and had so many exciting plans for her future. And so when she suddenly died at the age of thirty-eight, after a brain haemorrhage, those who knew her were left feeling a mixture of feelings -- from anger and rage to confusion, raw grief and deep sadness.

So! Did I dumbly cross stitch to distract myself from these feelings? No! Instead, I stumbled into an unplanned project that came to my mind when a plant that she had given me came into bloom. I felt the urge to celebrate her life in cross stitch, by making a sampler containing the things that were dear to her.

I included that flower, a boat and the sea shore, a kite, a parakeet, a tabby cat, and a small maroon Caterham Seven car. Far from tormenting me by reminding me of someone who would no longer exist in this world, I found myself smiling as I stitched.

I remembered the times that she and I had gone sailing, and her love of her car. I remembered the time when she had managed to reverse it into her front gate. Instead of being shocked or angry, we both laughed all afternoon after that incident.

Her love of her pets was much in evidence. Plato, the parakeet, and Tabitha Cat were added with great enthusiasm to the sampler. In a strange way, I feel as if I have immortalised her in cross stitch.

Now, when I look at that sampler, I do not feel so cheated of a friend, so bereft. Instead, I can smile and remember what beautiful times she had fitted into that short life. Stitching a small design can take hours, as we know. I was able to focus on each aspect of her character as I stitched every addition to my creation.

I brought this subject up when I met up with some stitching friends recently. Far from receiving a surprised response from them, I was interested to learn that my idea was not as peculiar as I had thought. One friend, Suzie, said that she had decided to stitch a picture of her mother who had recently died.

In this case, she did not create a sampler. She wanted to stitch a copy of a photograph of her mother. She had sent off her favourite photograph to a major thread company, who had transferred her photograph into a cross stitch chart, added the threads, and a few days later, the complete kit was delivered to her, ready for stitching.

Suzie said that she remembers that when she was a small child, her mother would knit all her cardigans and tell her that there was love in every stitch. Now, she said, she was putting love into every stitch of her mother's picture. She said that she was able to feel close to her mother when she stitched her picture, and that the repetitive nature of the stitching had the quality of meditation to bring to her stitching. She said that she felt calm and resigned to her mother's death, and that the picture would bring her a lot of comfort when it was completed and framed.

Perhaps the nature of stitching a project focusing on a loved one who has died involves having a quiet time alone with that person, or even celebrate the time spent with him or her -- or even a much loved pet.

If you have lost someone special, I can recommend stitching as a way of reaching out to those memories, to think about the life of that person (or animal) and feel happy for that special life.

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