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.

Great Scottish tapestry progress

Most Saturdays at moment I can be found at the Paisley Thread mill museum stitching on a local panel for the Great Scottish tapestry. Its been very interesting and has really got me interested in stitching again.

The panel designs were added by the project artist Andrew Crummy, with input from the group on the side panel images. The central area has set colours but the other colours are decided by the stitchers within the overall palette of the tapestry. The individual stitchers work out what stitches to use in the figures but the borders and lettering are in particular stitches - heavy chain and quaker stitch respectively

The last time I shared a progress picture, the panel looked like this



The past few sessions and some time at home let me finish this square about Willie Gallacher a local political figure from the 1910-1940 era. I'm really pleased about how this turned out



And the whole panel looked like this at that point a few weeks ago



Here's an action shot of several of us stitching on the panel at the same time


The past few weeks has seen quite a bit of progress. I had the project at home for the past few days and this is how it looked when I handed it over prior to the mid week stitching meet up



Most of my weekend stitching focused on stitching the Mill girl figure in woven stitch covered with lazy daisy flowers



Other stitches have been working on the skater figure



And a cinema goer




The project is being filmed on Friday by the BBC for an edition of Songs of Praise but unfortunately I won't be there due to work. A local film maker is making a film for the national lottery heritage fund also which I have been filmed for so I have already been caught on film. We are hoping to finish the project this week and I think we might just make it.

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.