I first set eyes on the Bayeux tapestry thanks to a wrong turn. My husband was driving us across France, missed an exit, and we accidentally ended up in the town of Bayeux.
I live in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, but having grown up in Sweden, I’d only been vaguely aware of the tapestry. I knew 1066 was a significant date for the English, but history lessons had bored me at school. I’d always had a love of needlework, though – my grandmother taught me to embroider – so we decided to see it.
Walking along the 70-metre tapestry, which portrays William the Conqueror’s victory over England’s King Harold, I was blown away. The scale of it was incredible. I couldn’t believe it was almost 1,000 years old. We went round it quickly with our two young children, but when we came out I told my husband: “I’m going back in by myself,” and disappeared for another hour.
A decade later, as a gift for a history-loving friend, I embroidered a three-metre scene depicting some moments from our friendship in the style of the Bayeux tapestry. He’s a big man, and not usually emotional, but when I gave it to him, he shed a tear.
Soon after, one of our mutual friends commissioned me to recreate a small section of the famous tapestry. I enjoyed it so much that I later decided I should do the whole thing.
It’s been eight years since I started, and I’m now 44 metres in. The labour has taken its toll on my body; my fingers are full of tiny holes where the needle has constantly pricked my skin. My left elbow gets sore, too, which I’ve been told is because of strain from my neck.
Sometimes I’ll spend 10 hours a day bent over it; other days I’ll fit in an hour before I go to bed. I try to work on it every day. I always sit in the same corner of my living room, with my laptop nearby so I can look at an online copy of the tapestry. I used to use a book, but my German pointer, Bruin, developed a habit of curling up to sleep next to me with her paw over the pages.
Each metre I sew is valued at a minimum of £4,500 – the figure is based on my commission rates – so people are often horrified to discover I sling the piece I’m working on over the back of my sofa. I work on nine-metre-long pieces; the completed ones are rolled up in my spare room.
No one knows who produced the original, but I think it was probably a small group of women. I love thinking about them and the conversations they might have had. Lots of the scenes in the tapestry’s border show people missing various items of clothing. Maybe they were trying to amuse each other, or see what they could get away with.
I’ve also seen tiny errors: the pallbearers carrying the coffin of Edward the Confessor don’t have enough legs between them; a sailor’s hand is completely detached from his body; one soldier is wearing two types of chainmail at once.
All these mistakes are included in my work. People point out my own mistakes when I show the tapestry at events, too. A lady spotted that I had left one man with a very cold bottom for more than a year after I forgot to stitch the lower half of his tunic on. I was horrified. I used to hate having my mistakes pointed out. But now I embrace the fact that some people really find joy in spotting them.
I had hoped to complete the tapestry within a decade, but the work is much slower than I’d anticipated. I call it Schrödinger’s tapestry: I am desperate to finish, but at the same time I don’t want it to end. It’s bittersweet, like getting to the end of a favourite book – I want to have that joy ahead of me. The more I sew, the more is behind me, and I feel quite sad about that.
I will probably sell it to a museum when it’s finished; I want it to go to somebody who values it. I like the thought of it being on display and people feeling the sense of the wonder when they see my work as I felt when I saw the original, all those years ago.
To celebrate the 1,000th anniversary of the birth of William the Conqueror, in 2027, the president of the Normandy region and the mayor of Bayeux will select artists to design the very last section for the original tapestry, which is infamously missing. If I’m lucky, I might stand a chance of being chosen. That would be my dream come true.
• As told to Heather Main
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