Hello Hello!
I have been busy doing and so have not had much time for blogging but I thought you might enjoy the wonderful exhibition I went to on Saturday. This is a very photo-heavy post for which I make no apologies. I could have taken twice as many!
It was The Great Tapestry of Scotland which was being exhibited at the Scottish Parliament.
"The brainchild of bestselling author Alexander McCall Smith, historian Alistair Moffat and artist Andrew Crummy, the Great Tapestry of Scotland is an outstanding celebration of 420 million years of Scottish history and achievement. Involving a thousand stitchers from all over the country who worked on 165 separate panels, the tapestry is one of the biggest community arts projects ever to have taken place in Scotland." From the guidebook The Making of a Masterpiece by Susan Mansfield and Andrew Moffat.
I went on the last day so I can't urge you all to go, but it is returning to the parliament next summer so keep your eyes peeled if you are near by. It is also going on tour around Scotland. The dates haven't been announced yet but the website is here.
Unfortunately the lighting was awful and flash was not allowed. It was also hugely busy so some sections were hard to see. I have done my best to give you an idea in pictures but you can see a slideshow of lots of the panels on their website.
Each panel is about a metre high with amazing detail and wonderful colours. My favourites were the ones with less people and more landscape and where the areas of colour had not just been coloured in with stitches, but a lot of thought had been put into texture and pattern. Some of the stitching was amazingly intricate and quite wonderful.
Enjoy!
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| The Great Tapestry of Scotland |
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| The Ceaseless Sea and the Land Formation of Scotland |
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| James Watt and the Steam Engine |
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| Scots in India - I think this one was my favourite. |
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| Border detail |
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| Paisley Peacock |
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| Paisley Lady |
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| Herring Girls |
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| Fair Isle- Loved this! |
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| The First Edinburgh Festival |
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| The Growth of Glasgow |
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| Glenlivet Distillery |
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| You can almost smell the 'angel's share' from the distillery. |
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| Fingal's Cave |
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| New Lanark - a real woollen mill and generally lovely place |
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| Herring Girls |
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| James Hutton, father of Geology - notice his stone hat |
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| Detail from James Hutton's hat. |
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| Aberdeen |
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| Wonderful textured stitching! |
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| Pop Music Booms |
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| I love all these little houses |
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| Gorgeous frock! |
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| The borders of the panels are filled with gorgeous detail |
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| Glasgow, European City of Culture |
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| The Scottish Parliament - my other favourite, you can see more detail in the next two pics. |
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| Just look at the texture of the checks on the leaf - almost tartan, and the flowers are completely wonderful. |
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| The checks on the thistle are all different stitch patterns. |
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| Map of Scotland Today |
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| North-wind blows/Geese/Ceaseless Sea |
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| Corner detail |
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| The panels were all signed with little images |
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| Credits |
Wow, how amazing are they?
ReplyDeleteThey are beautiful, gosh the hours of work! :) x
ReplyDeleteWhat a joy that must have been to see it in person. Alexander McCall Smith is one of my favourite authours.
ReplyDeleteHow amazing. Wish I could have seen it.
ReplyDeleteStunning! Thanks for sharing all these photos. I have Scottish heritage so it's a special treat to look at.
ReplyDelete