Embroiderer releases Bayeux Tapestry pattern book

A woman who has spent nearly a decade making a replica of the Bayeux Tapestry is releasing some of her designs so others can have a go.

Mia Hansson, from Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, has been working on her own full-size copy of the tapestry since 2016.

She has included 25 hand-drawn full-scale images of the designs in a book. They can be ironed on to fabric and embroidered.

Hansson said that with the real thing heading to the British Museum later this year, it was the perfect time to release Embroider the Bayeux Tapestry.

The original tapestry, nearly 1,000 years old and 70m (230ft) long, tells the story of the 1066 Norman conquest of England and the Battle of Hastings.

It will be displayed at the London museum from September as part of a cultural exchange later.

Hansson said she wanted to finish replica by 2027 when the tapestry returns home to the newly reopened Bayeux Museum in Normandy.

It will also mark the 1,000th anniversary of William the Conqueror's birth.

"We have pitched this book perfectly in time... [and I hope] I will be there watching it with eagle eyes," she said.

"I am hoping they will allow me to take part of my tapestry... and get a picture."

Hansson said her work contained just seven colours.

"In these nine and a half years I have stitched myself to the fabric and have had to unpick myself," she said.

"I could say I have become one with the fabric in my project."

The needle she has used has been named "the one and only" as she has used it for the entire project.

Hansson has published five colouring books linked to the tapestry.

Embroider the Bayeux Tapestry will be available from June and she hopes it will go on sale at the British Museum while the original is on display there.

She said she had a meeting with a publisher recently, "and sales reps told me that the interest for this book is huge as it may be the only one of its kind".

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