Curled up on her sofa in the east of England, former teacher Mia Hansson carefully adds another stitch to her life-size reproduction of the world-famous Bayeux Tapestry.
Swedish-born Hansson began the project in 2016, working for several hours a day to reproduce the epic 70-meter (230-foot) embroidery of William the Conqueror’s invasion of England.
“I had nothing to do and I was really, really bored so I thought I needed a project that I can’t finish in a hurry, and what’s bigger than the Bayeux Tapestry?” Hansson, 47, told AFP at her home in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire.
Hansson, who has lived in Britain for more than 20 years, has been working on her version for three to four hours a day for the last five and a half years.
In January, she reached the halfway mark.
“Look here for example: you can see four soldiers’ heads but only four legs, something is wrong!” she said. “But who am I to correct what they did?”
The Bayeux Tapestry. Scene 38: William and His Fleet Cross the Channel, ca 1070. Found in the Collection of Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux.Photo: IC
