Hull in Stitches artist prepares to unveil epic craft project
A STITCH IN TIME: Miranda van Rossum, left, and Charlotte Theill reviewing the collection of 100 people and places
Chewing the Fat – out to lunch with Phil Ascough
This week’s guest: Miranda van Rossum
Venue: Danish Church, Osborne Street
As she sat shivering on the touchline, frozen fingers trying to capture the colour of the Roger Millward stand, Miranda van Rossum felt the warm glow of a job well done.
This was the last stop on a journey which had taken her to 100 different venues around Hull, creating a lovingly crafted cross-stitch piece for each and learning along the way that Hull in Stitches was not so much about needles and threads, more the strands that connect communities.
“I realised very quickly it was about much more than stitching locations,” she said.
“It’s things that represent those locations rather than just stitching buildings. It’s about good people doing good things.”
We met back at the first point on Miranda’s trail. She chose the city’s Danish Church after becoming captivated by a relic from the building’s predecessor which was bombed more than 70 years before.
Charlotte Theill, the manager of the church, told Miranda how the original building in Hull was flattened during an air raid on May 9, 1941 – the eve of its 70th anniversary.
Its replacement was consecrated in 1954 and marked its 70th birthday in May 2024. Among the artefacts salvaged from the rubble was a small glass rosette which became part of the new church as a feature in a new stained glass window and which provided a focus for Miranda.
“I know the Danish Church well,” she said.
“I didn’t know that this wasn’t the original building but it is still iconic and has a great history. When I walked in and saw the window again it jumped out at me as something that is colourful and unique. A nice thing to stitch.”
Miranda came to Hull nearly 30 years ago from Utrecht in the Netherlands. Originally she planned to stay for a year but she stuck around, got a job at the University of Hull in the Dutch Studies department and now works part-time as a translator.
IN THE BEGINNING: Miranda and Charlotte working on the first piece for Hull is Stitches at the Danish Church in March 2024
She completed her first fundraiser in 2014 with a 24-hour “stitch-athon” in aid of the House of Light charity, which offers support and counselling to parents before and after birth.
From June to October 2021 she completed 48,000 stitches to recreate Van Gogh’s The Starry Night, which raised just over £2,000 for Hull Food Bank from sponsorship and the sale of the finished work.
From January 2022 until March 2023 Miranda copied The Four Seasons by Alphonse Mucha and raised about £2,850, again for Hull Food Bank, from a work of 120,000 stitches.
Her latest project began on Friday, March 1 2024 when she sat down with Charlotte to make drawings of the stained glass window. The final call was at Hull Kingston Rovers for the match against Salford on Thursday, February 27, 2025.
She said: “I sat at the corner of the pitch for about half an hour before the players came out to warm up. I did some stitching while the match was actually on. It was absolutely freezing!”
BUSY BEE: A fire engine in the trademark colours of Bee Lady Jean Bishop
In between Miranda did the other 98 and, returning to the scene of the first piece, she brought a map of Hull on which she had placed a hundred stickers, one for each location. She also had her book full of stitched pieces, each with a slip of paper bearing the details of what, where and when.
Everybody will find their own favourite when all the pieces go on display. The Jean Bishop fire engine in her iconic bee design. A West Hull community hub bingo card picking out a set of numbers unique to the life and career of Johnny Whiteley. A child-like design for HEY Children’s University. There’s loads more and we can’t fit them all in here. Go and see it. Be blown away like Charlotte, who couldn’t believe how things turned out.
Charlotte said: “This is a fantastic project and we’re thrilled that we were able to be involved from the start. Just hearing Miranda talk about her work is amazing, how it has just grown from the first day here and what wonderful people and places she has encountered. It really is worth sharing and letting people know about all the places and the people behind them.”
Miranda is left with trying to thank too many venues to mention: “I have been to all eleven libraries in the city and quite a lot of social groups and coffee mornings. Also craft groups and green space, brass bands, professional and amateur theatre.”
And festivals including Big Malarkey and the Freedom Festival, where Tamar & Jo’s Sync or Swim was captured in cross-stitch with their performance at Stage@The Dock.
GOOD CALL: A bingo card in memory of Johnny Whiteley at the West Hull Community Hub
Miranda said: “There are lots of cultural references and a lot of landmarks. Some of it is what you see is what you get, but not all of the work is that literal. With some pieces I had a fairly clear idea of what I wanted to do but others came from people telling me how they wanted to be recorded.
“As I started taking the book with me it generated even more conversations because it brought back so many memories of places people knew. Certain themes kept coming out of the conversations, people saying a place was their second family, lifeline, combatting loneliness. Some of the stories are so moving, about lots of people in their own way trying to make life a wee bit better, whether they are dance organisations or support groups.
“I put a Facebook message on One Hull of a City and that brought a lot of responses. When I wanted a chippy someone at Maxlife Youth Centre recommended Cave Street. I’d go to one location and the people there would suggest another one. There were so many ideas. I did one with a dog and one of the children who saw it said I had to make sure it was on a leash! Hull in Stitches took on a life of its own!”
Miranda also found she was learning new skills as she continued her tour of the city.
She said: “I had never drawn my own designs before I started this so there has been a lot of measuring to get it right. I would take a photograph, do all sorts of measurements and then draw something onto my trusty graph paper.”
CULTURAL TIDE: A piece celebrating the performance of Sync or Swim at Freedom Festival
The scale of Hull in Stitches also forced Miranda to rethink her plans to stick all the pieces onto a standard map of the city. She couldn’t find one big enough so now she plans to make her own, measuring about 7ft wide and 5ft high, and find a way of putting it on permanent display.
She said: “I plan to complete the map by the end of April and I’m talking to people about what happens next. Alan Dalgairns at the Library of Stuff has offered to make it interactive, adding tags so people can identify the locations and find out more about them on their websites.”
For all Miranda’s artistry it’s impossible to create a full and precise picture of her efforts over the last year. On average it took her ten hours to visit, design and stitch each location, so a total of 1,000. The number of stitches used varies from about 150 for some of the simpler designs to 1,600 for the more intricate pieces.
In addition to the standard fabric and thread, Miranda has used beads, ribbons, sequins, felt, card, buttons, pencil, felt tips, oil pastels, leather, an old pair of jeans, twigs, tin foil and a tiddlywink.
It’s still a fundraiser and has so far brought in nearly £1,700 for the Trussell Foodbank in Hull. It also has a wider feelgood factor, hence the hope that whoever buys the finished product will display it to inform and inspire others.
COMMUNITY LEARNING: A piece in honour of HEY Children’s University
“It is understandable at the moment for so many people to feel helpless,” said Miranda.
“But then you look at the local area and see all these people doing all these things. People love it. They like the fact that someone has taken time to speak to them and design something that’s about them. Some of them have posted images of the work on their social media – they are proud to be one in a hundred.
“People moan about Hull – and it has its problems – but there are so many good things and ultimately they are all about connections and community. What sets Hull apart? It’s the level of connectedness. There’s no such things as six degrees of separation in Hull – it’s two at the most!
“Also the Hull spirit. People are used to being forgotten and that has led to a defiant attitude, a lot of independence and self-sufficiency. There’s so much to say. I could talk about it for hours in any number of different ways. It’s been a fantastic experience. It’s one of the best things I have ever done. As for what next? I’m never short of ideas!”
You can support the Trussell Foodbank in recognition of Miranda’s work here