AN ARTIST using a sewing machine powered by renewable energy has stitched a landscape scene of Winchester Cathedral.
Harriet Riddell, who worked on the piece between 15 and 17 April, used a sewing machine powered by people pedalling a special bicycle. Among the pedallers was the deputy head verger.
Ms Riddell told the Church Times on Tuesday that Winchester Cathedral had always struck her as “such a beautiful building and so prominent”, and that it would be “a great challenge to try and capture it and learn a bit more about his history”.
Living near Winchester, she said, she also wanted to establish herself within the community. “I‘ve been all around the world stitching but not locally,” she said.
Nine years ago, she stitched St Paul’s Cathedral using the pedal-powered sewing machine, but not at the same level of detail as the Winchester piece. This time, she was trying to push herself in terms of intricacy.
WINCHESTER CATHEDRALHarriet Riddell working on her Winchester Cathedral piece
Ms Riddell has been using the bike for 11 years, and first got the idea at the Glastonbury Festival.
“I started travelling around the world, buying batteries in each new country, because you can’t fly with them, and doing these street scenes. But my batteries would always die. Then, at Glastonbury Festival, I was really struggling to charge my batteries because in the green craft area, there’s no electricity there at all. I thought: why don’t people ride a bike, and they can pedal to power their own portrait?”
Portraits used more power than landscapes, because of capturing people’s hair, she said. “The landscape scenes are a little bit more considered, and I move at a slower pace. If I’m going fast on the machine, people feel it in their legs. You can literally feel my stitches, which I quite like.”
Ms Riddell said that she would complete the Winchester piece at home, as, during the first day outside the cathedral, it had been windy, and hadn’t stayed for very long.
Follow Harriet Riddell’s progress on Instagram: @ institchyou
