I’ve recently finished reading The Lady and The Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier. It was interesting to read her fictional story of how the tapestries came to be, and the family and people around them.
I love the Unicorn tapestries. They are just gorgeous, and when we were in New York several years ago, we visited The Cloisters to see the set that they have there.
I particularly love the millefleurs – the millions of flowers in the background. They are beautiful, and one of the things that I also particularly love in William Morris’ woven tapestries, with the millefleurs usually designed by John Henry Dearle.
I wrote an article a few years ago for Inspirations magazine on the meaning of flowers. While we just think they are pretty flowers, they all had symbolic meaning. All quite fascinating!
But one of the things that caught my imagination most about “The Lady and The Unicorn” was the woad dyer, always stinking of urine. It would really make you weigh up whether you really wanted to have blue in your tapestry…
Just a reminder that we start our Mountmellick stitch along tomorrow. 🙂
White Threads is the blog of Yvette Stanton, the author, designer, publisher behind Vetty Creations' quality needlework books and embroidery products.
They were weaving these at Stirling Castle, Stirling, Scotland (when I was there in 2009), so if anyone is close to the castle, they are wonderful to see.
http://scotland-travel.suite101.com/article.cfm/hunt_of_the_unicorn_tapestries_stirling_castle
That’s true! We saw them weaving them in 2002(?), as well. I’d forgotten about that. I picked up a small left-over bit of wool off the floor as a souvenir. I had it for quite a few years, and then it just melted into the mess of threads somewhere here in my office.
There’s a set in the Musee de Cluny, in Paris. The first time I saw them I sat down and stared for a good twenty minutes – breathtaking. My companions were quite anxious by the time I moved again!
Hmmm… yes… I keep telling people that some of my memory was wiped when I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. That’s another good example, as I’ve seen the Paris ones too. Just forgot about it until you mentioned it. Well no, that’s not quite true. I remember the walk up to the museum, and its entry way, but I was thinking it was the approach to The Cloisters. So it was buried in my memory, just filed incorrectly!