The very first thing that I do is try to pray. Nothing very formal, just that the work of my hands is blessed and that my heart will be pure. I'm slow in the morning; it takes me a really long time to just get with living. I make some porridge, and after I've eaten I start to feel better. Fortunately, most of my classes don't begin till 10.

My daughter Angela is living with me at the moment, with her daughter Maggie, who's three. It's great to have them around, though our paths don't really cross. She's writing a novel. We're both busy, and I usually leave the house first in the mornings.

I teach elderly, disadvantaged and disabled people. I enjoy all my classes, but you really see a positive change in the elderly. Art provides motivation and cognitive skills, and for demotivated people it's a way to engender confidence to deal with life. You can use aesthetic experience to reinforce positive ways of thinking.

I'm also working with 12- and 13-year-old girls who have had babies. We were commissioned by the special-care baby unit at St Michael's Hill, Bristol, and the girls made bright covers for the incubators. Another project is celebrity stars, where they sew up little stars that we send off to celebrities to sign.

I usually work through lunch. I might grab some peanuts, but I keep more alert if I have an empty stomach. If you've got a group of 12, you've got to be aware of what all of them are doing. You have to have eyes in the back of your head - especially if they're partially sighted and using scissors and sewing machines.

I really do feel tired when I come home, about four or five. I have something to eat, I go for a walk, then I carry on with my own work in my workroom upstairs. Patchwork is a difficult medium to work in - it takes months rather than days to create an image. People think I have a lot of patience, but I'm a very impatient person. I try to avoid anything where I have to wait - even a shopping queue. I'm driven by the fact that I'm impatient to finish.

My husband left us 10 years ago. It was pretty grim. That was when I started doing the patchwork. I found that when I couldn't concentrate on drawing or painting, I could do this. And it provided a structure at a time when everything else was falling apart. It just happened that I sold something early on, and that made a lot of difference to our finances. I've had commissions ever since, and now they sell for between £600 and £1,200.

I like bright colours and I like contrasting, extreme tonalities. A lot of people are afraid of colour and there's still a prejudice against textiles as a medium. It can be elephant dung or anything else, but textiles, no.

I did a piece recently for the American Museum near Bath, based on a Navajo pattern from the American southwest. When America was a colony, all fabric had to be imported from England - it was illegal to have your own loom. As it was so expensive, the geometric designs were utilised to use up every tiny piece of fabric. A girl would start her sewing when she was five, and by the time she was engaged she'd have made 12 quilts. The 13th quilt was made on her engagement by her friends. Even now it's the tradition. It's a nice way of building communities, and it's approachable. Perhaps that's one of the reasons that fine art tends to denigrate it.

Around six it's really nice if I can read Maggie a story before she goes to bed. Roald Dahl is always a favourite, with Quentin Blake's illustrations. I don't have an evening meal - maybe a peanut-butter sandwich. I don't do badly with food - it's just that I'm only one person, and I hate cooking. Mostly I'm just working.

I go to bed around 11. I often read a novel. I love John le Carré. I wake up at 3am and sort out the cat - she'll be wanting to come in or go out - and hopefully get a little more sleep. I can't remember the last time I slept through the night. But it's nice: that's when I get through my novels. I pray again just before I go to sleep. If I'm angry with someone, I pray, 'Let me not be quite so angry with this person,' or I pray for that person. There's such a need for prayer in this world. I was 23 when I became a Catholic. It was hard, but it was the best thing I've ever done. It was like walking out of the cold into a warm room.