Mia Hansson (b. 1974) is a Swedish textile artist, storyteller and illustrator. Hansson was born and raised in Skanör, Sweden’s southernmost point. Her introduction to cross-stitch began young: when Hansson was five, her grandmother, Greta, introduced her to the technique, and the lessons have stayed with the artist to this day. Hansson is a fourth-generation needleworker: her great-grandmother was a quilter, her grandmother was a knitter and crocheter, as was her mother, who also made her own clothes.
Hansson’s hometown is located close to an open-air Viking Age museum, Foteviken, in Höllviken. It was here that she threw herself into the world of Viking reenactments from 2001, and her love for needlework blossomed as she began making period clothing. In 2003, Hansson moved to London, where she worked in specialist dementia care, before moving to Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, with her partner and his young adult disabled son, Tom. For Tom’s wellbeing, Hansson decided to become his full-time carer, which meant frequently spending time at home. This gave the artist plenty of time to cross-stitch.
In July 2016, Hansson made the very first stitch on her full-scale Bayeux Tapestry reproduction, which she has worked on for the past ten years. She is due to finish this extraordinary achievement in time for the 1,000th anniversary of William the Conqueror’s birth, in 2027. With complete fidelity to the original, Hansson studies the historic work closely, reproducing its imagery, colours, stitching and even its imperfections. Rather than correcting the mistakes found in the medieval embroidery, she deliberately incorporates them, treating these irregularities as part of the Tapestry’s history and character.
Through over ten thousand hours of painstaking hand embroidery, Hansson transforms the eleventh-century Tapestry into a living, evolving object, inviting audiences to reconsider the Bayeux Tapestry not as a distant museum artefact, but as a work made through human hands, patience and storytelling. Her practice demonstrates how traditional craft can become a powerful form of historical engagement, connecting the experiences of medieval makers with those of a twenty-first-century artist.
Since 2022, Hansson has experienced a boom of international recognition for her long-term Bayeux project, with news outlets, radio and TV channels around the world reporting on her progress.
In the same year, HRH the Duchess of Gloucester met the artist in Brington and viewed her work on the Tapestry. Hansson has self-published a seven-part series of books titled Mia’s Bayeux Tapestry Musings, along with Bayeux-inspired colouring books she has illustrated. Hansson has recently published Embroider the Bayeux Tapestry (Search Press), which features 25 full-scale iron-on patterns, and The Bayeux Tapestry Colouring Book is due to be released in September 2026 (also Search Press).
