Clackmannanshire Tapestry
An inspirational piece of community art produced by over forty volunteers.
Tapestry making has been a way of telling stories, recording history and connecting communities since Medieval times. The Clackmannanshire Tapestry follows this tradition and is on permanent display in the Alloa Hub. Its purpose is to enable both local residents and visitors to explore, enjoy and celebrate all that Clackmannanshire has to offer.
A Stitch Through Time
Inspired by the Great Tapestry of Scotland when it was on show in Alloa in 2017 – and the lack of representation of the Wee County on its panels – the completed Clackmannanshire Tapestry was revealed in March 2022. It was designed by Andrew Crummy and forms part of the Scottish Tapestry Trail.
Led by CTSi (Clackmannanshire Third Sector Interface), the creation of this beautiful Tapestry involved around 40 volunteer stitchers from across Clackmannanshire. They were arranged in five groups, each hand sewing their individual panel. When all five panels were complete they were skilfully joined together by the Stitching Co-ordinator for the project, Lesley Thornton from Tillicoultry, to form one large panel 2.5 metres long by 1 metre high.
Industry and Identity
The Tapestry depicts Clackmannanshire’s former and current industries including glass-working, mining, yarn spinning, brewing and weaving. Pottery and whisky distilling are also featured, along with the rich cultural and social history of the Wee County.
In addition, the achievements of some spirited men and women of Clackmannanshire, who made their mark in quite different ways, are celebrated on the Tapestry. It conveys a sense of place and a pride in Clackmannanshire.
A Community Effort
The majority of the stitchers had no experience of embroidery before embarking on the project, but workshops were held at the end of 2019 to arm volunteers with the necessary skills and knowledge.
Once the required stitching standard was reached, work started on the Tapestry itself and continued during 2020 and 2021, including through Covid lockdowns. Get-togethers to discuss progress had to move online before outdoor gatherings were finally permitted.
The panels were passed from stitcher to stitcher, quarantined in between for a few days to ensure safety, but this slowed progress. Behind the curtain of lockdowns, the stitchers worked, mainly in isolation, to create the Clackmannanshire Tapestry.
The Art Behind the Stitches
Creating a work like this is not, as some stitchers initially thought, a case of being an embroidery version of ‘painting by numbers’. It is the stitchers themselves who have decisions to make about which stitch to use, what colour, how to depict anything from a wooden barrel to a red squirrel, and so on.
It can be quite daunting to be faced with a large piece of linen, blank apart from a few pencil lines drawn by Andrew Crummy.
The stitchers were asked to come up with ideas for filling the roundels, which form the perimeter of the Tapestry and other blank sections of the design. There was a liaison between the groups to eliminate duplication.
Once a subject for a roundel had been agreed, the challenge was then to design it! Quite a tricky prospect, especially for those who thought they had little artistic bent. But the resulting completed roundels were of a high standard and added immeasurably to the final product.
Proud to Be Part of History
Everyone involved in the creation of the Tapestry felt privileged to have been involved in a project that will survive for posterity and is now part of Clackmannanshire’s history.
You can view the Clackmannanshire Tapestry in the Alloa Hub
The Clackmannanshire Tapestry is part of the new Scottish Tapestry Trail launched in 2024. This connects community art works across Scotland together that were inspired by the Great Tapestry of Scotland, which also visited the Speirs Centre in Alloa in 2017.
The Scottish Tapestry Trail | The Great Tapestry of Scotland