Dotwork drape across the upper back

Mr Ashdown has finally let me near the beads. I spent the whole of March winding thread onto spools and sweeping up clippings, and yesterday he put a needle in my hand and a bowl of jet and navy glass in front of me and said, "Dots first, Edie, then the drop. Never the drop first." I have been counting them ever since. Two hundred and eleven for the collar alone, each one stitched down with a knot that must not show on the back.

The commission is for Mrs Hallam's daughter, who marries at St Mary's in June. She wanted something that would catch the light without shouting, so we worked out a drape that falls from the shoulder blades in a fan, thinning as it goes down the spine, with loose strands hanging like rain that has stopped halfway. At the base of the spine sits the teardrop, a single piece of blue glass Mr Ashdown bought from a man in Leeds who swore it was older than the town. It is the only thing I have been afraid to touch.

Thursday's fitting went badly. The beads stiffened in the damp, two strands pulled loose, and Mr Ashdown went quiet in the way he does before he says something unkind. I sat on the stool with my heart going and unpicked the lot, stitch by stitch, until the teardrop sat square and the strands fell straight. He looked at it a long time and said nothing, which from him is praise.

I have kept one spare dot in my apron pocket, the smallest, the colour of a night with no moon. When the dress goes out on Saturday I will sew it inside my own collar where nobody can see, and feel it there while I sweep. Write back soon, and tell Mother I am eating.

Yours, Edie