My life is like a tapestry

So goes the Carole King song. The album Tapestry came out in the year I was born and I heard it growing up. It's still a feature on my iPod now.

The past year has been a tapestry in both the metaphorical and literal senses and Tapestries are a huge part of my life right now.

Recently I've spent quite a bit of time stitching on a panel for the Scottish Diaspora tapestry.

Mostly I stitched on this panel about the First shawl woven in Paisley as part of a stitching group at the Paisley thread mill museum



Other stitchers in the same group stitched this panel.



In September, the whole tapestry is coming to Paisley to visit for an exhibition which I'm helping to organise.


However the Tapestry that is taking up a lot of time is already finished and currently on display in Aberdeen. After Aberdeen, the Tapestry is coming to Paisley and I'm helping to organise the exhibition as part of the Paisley thread mill museum organisation and in association with a group called Weaving Musical threads and West College Scotland. There is a lot of work ahead but it's going to be a hopefully amazing exhibition with lots of other events, including stitching workshops. The exhibition will be at the Atrium at the old Anchor thread mill.



It's an awesome exhibition space and I know it will look amazing there. If you live locally, we need volunteers to help with visitors. If you are interested, leave a comment here and I'll give you further details.

And now back to organising this hopefully fantastic event.

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.

Saturday stitching

Again I spent this past Saturday working on a local panel for the Great Scottish Tapestry. Last week I stitch some shoes and a bit of a dress.


This week it was more shoes and some grass.





Another stitcher finished this lovely thread label section



The stitchers might recognise the Anchor motif - Paisley is the original home of the Coats and Clark families who founded the original companies that are now the Coats brand. The town has many statues dedicated to the family members, they also paid for the local town hall and built a local Church in memory of Thomas Coats. When I graduated from the local university, the memorial church is where we graduated. The town's textile history is also reflected in street names - Thread, Cotton, Lawn and Gauze streets amongst others.

On stitching and heritage

The past two Saturdays have been spent in the company of some really interesting stitching.  The area I live in is famous for it's textile history of Paisley shawls and lots of mills.  Unfortunately the mills are now closed but at the end of my street, there are still several old mill buildings.  The biggest one is the old Anchor thread mill



Most of the building is now flats but a small part is a business centre with a small exhibition space.  For the past week or so, its been home to a exhibition of the Prestonpans tapestry - a representation of the Battle of Prestonpans in needlework.  It was an amazing sight.







Whilst I was there, I got talking to the local organisers of a panel for the Great Scottish Tapestry which is planned to be the biggest tapestry ever and arranged to go back last weekend to spend some time stitching on it.  The theme of the panel is Paisley in the 1930s



And this is a plan of part of the panel



This weekend, I'm going back to stitch on it a bit more.  The finishing deadline is fast approaching and they need to finish soon.