Saturday 20 June 2015

The Great Tapestry of Scotland - Part One

Good Morning Bloggers,

Today I'm not sharing my own pathetic attempts at crafting. No, instead I'm sharing the work of hundreds of really talented Scottish needleworkers discovered last month at the exhibition in Ayr of The Great Scottish Tapestry.
First, a bit of background information on The Great Tapestry of Scotland, It was the brainchild of one of the world’s best-loved writers, Alexander McCall Smith, the author of The No.1 Ladies' Detective Agency, together with historian Alistair Moffat, and with the artistic talents of Andrew Crummy, as well as more than 1000 stitchers from all areas of Scotland, formed a team with the intention of producing the world’s longest tapestries. 

I apologise for the quality of some of the photos but we were requested to turn off the flash on our cameras with good reason. I'm told that one flash is the equivalent to 100 hours of sunshine ... given that the tapestry is being exhibited all over the country the colours would soon fade if all the millions of visitors used their flash!!! It took us two days to go round the entire tapestry so I'll post the photos taken in two parts, otherwise this would be mammoth post!

Robert Burns - The Scottish Bard
Scottish Football
The Paisley Peacock
Fair Isle Knitters
The Scottish Thistle
Scots in India
Bow Fiddle Rock, Portknockie

Tweed Weaving
For those of us who love stats: - It took 65,000 hours of painstaking stitching, over 300 miles of wool (enough to lay the entire length of Scotland), covers 420 million years of Scottish history, all recorded in 160  panels to create one very beautiful, colourful and intricate tapestry depicting the entire history of Scotland! 

I'll be back soon with Part Two

Have a great weekend.

4 comments:

Twiglet said...

Awesome artwork there Elizabeth!

cuilliesocks said...

Hello Elizabeth this looks wonderful and well worth seeing. Such a wealth of sewing talent and really interesting panels. Thank you for sharing this fabulous record of Scottish history, Kate x

Carole Pollard said...

Brilliant thanks for sharing this great photos its wonderful Love and hugs Carole x

Judys Lace Creations said...

This would have been an amazing sight!What a mind to think of such a project, and how dedicated those who brought that idea to fruition!