Several Stitches in Time

How far does your fandom go? Lewis Barnavelt briefly read about the Norman Invasion at the 1066 Battle of Hastings (The Sign of the Sinister Sorcerer, 19). He likely remembered something about the Battle of Hastings -- but that's it. Many readers of Sign likely read the prevous 11 books in the series and remembered reading them -- but that's it/ Maybe someone painted pictures of their favorite scenes from the Barnavelt books. Lewis didn't spent 18 years hand stitching his own 40-foot ong version of the Bayeux Tapestry, the 230-foot long cloth depicting the events leading up to the Normal Invasion.

Andy Wilkinson did.Alex Ward reported in an April 8 Daily Mail article how Wilkinson, a London Underground engineer from Chatham, Kent, intended to make the tapestry to decorate the inside of a Norman-style tent but it quickly outgrew the space when he kept on sewing until he finished the Battle of Hastings section of the historical tapestry.

Mr Wilkinson has now been given the chance to display his 2:1 scale version at Battle Abbey in East Sussex, the site of the 1066 battle.

‘Having never done a tapestry before, I came home and found a picture and just started to draw and sew. I had no formal training in sewing or drawing.

'I just drew the outlines of figures and animals like the horses onto a piece of calico material and then just stitched it.

The original Bayeux Tapestry is 230ft long, is in eight separate pieces of linen and is exhibited in the Normandy town of Bayeux. The Battle of Hastings section is 80ft long.

His sewing sessions lasted from one to eight hours and he believes he has spent an average of two hours a day for 14 years on the project.