An embroiderer wants to reproduce a gigantic tapestry, which would take her until the year 2027 to finish.

Wisbech (AFP).- Needle in hand, Mia Hansson has been embarking on a titanic project for six years that she hopes to finish in 2027: to reproduce identically the famous 11th-century Bayeux tapestry recounting the conquest of England by a Norman duke.

“I had nothing to do, I was bored and I needed a project that wouldn’t be over quickly,” explains the 47-year-old Swede, who has lived in the UK for 20 years.

A fan of embroidery, this former teacher decided in 2016 to embark on the reproduction of the most famous of all: an 11th-century masterpiece, almost 70 meters long, which symbolizes the long warlike relations between England and the continent.

Five and a half years later, embroidering three or four hours a day, Hansson arrived in mid-January halfway through the work, which he keeps rolled up because he does not have enough space to spread it out at his home in Wisbech, eastern England.

You already know all its details by heart, including the mistakes made by the embroiderers of the time.

“For example, there are four heads of soldiers, but there are only four legs, it doesn’t fit,” he says. But “when you see the original, you don’t realize it,” she says.

Yet she reproduces these “anomalies,” as she calls them. “Who am I to change what was done?”

8,000 meters of wool

The tapestry, probably conceived in Canterbury in south-east England, recounts the events leading up to the Norman Duke William the Conqueror’s conquest of England, culminating in 1066 in the death of King Harold Godwinson at the Battle of Hastings and the proclamation of William I as the new sovereign.

Classified in 2007 by UNESCO in its Memory of the World programis currently preserved in a museum in the Norman city of Bayeux, in northwestern France.

Paris and London have discussed a possible loan to the UK, but it will not be able to be shipped until it has been fully restored, starting in the fall of 2024 and for at least 18 months.

Hansson was initially “not very interested in the history” of the tapestry, but learned it by embroidering and now knows all about the adventures of the 626 characters depicted on the canvas.

“On the tapestry, we have everything. Birds and dragons, camels, horses, ships, monuments, everything is different”, she explains enthusiastically.

To reproduce wool-on-linen embroideries, Mia uses threads in seven colors. “If I have calculated correctly, I will need a total of 8,000 meters,” he estimates.

He gave himself another five years hoping to finish his project on July 13, 2027, 11 years after starting it.

“As far as I know, I am the first to do it in Europe”, he says, aware that a Canadian has already completed a similar replica in 10 years.

If Mia Hansson is not embroidering looking for the record, she is thinking about the future of her reproduction. “I guess she could sell it. If someone makes me an offer that I can’t refuse, that’s fine with me.”