Tapestry time

Just over a week ago, the Great Scottish Tapestry exhibition opened at the Scottish Parliament. Unfortunately I couldn't make the formal stitchers' preview event due to a trip to London but I've been over to visit it a couple of times now.

I've taken a lot of pictures which you can see at my flickr album Each time I look at it, I see something else to marvel at.


Last Saturday, I took a tour of the Parliament whilst I was visiting. For those who aren't familiar with how the UK is set up, Scotland remains part of the UK but certain issues are devolved to government in Scotland to deal with. The building itself has a controversial history - it took longer than expected to build, cost more and has had issues with beams falling. The designer of the building and the first minister of Scotland both died during the project build.

It is a lovely building and full of light, which is hard thing to achieve when it's rainy day in September in Edinburgh



It was amazing and somewhat emotional to see the panel I stitched on hanging there



There are so many panels that it's hard to pick out favourites. I love this one -panel 107 the Paisley lady



Panel 93 - Scots in India is another favourite



Panel 140 Cumbernauld is a great one, especially as it depicts a scene from classic 80s Scottish movie Gregory's girl which was set there



In November, a book of all the panels is going to be released and the Tapestry is going to be displayed elsewhere in the UK and in the USA/Canada hopefully in 2015. The panel I stitched on grew out of oral history project to record the stories of the people who lived in Paisley between the 2 world wars. A film has been made which is now online and hopefully the link will work below.