Big Four Seasons Stitch: Alphonse Mucha replica to boost charity

A cross-stitcher is to use 120,000 stitches to recreate a colourful artwork in a year-long charity marathon starting on New Year's Day.

Miranda van Rossum, from Hull, will make a replica of Czech artist Alphonse Mucha's series of panels with nymph-like women depicting the four seasons.

She has already raised more than £2,000 for Hull Foodbank by stitching a replica of Van Gogh's The Starry Night.

Ms van Rossum plans to help the same charity again with her latest project.

Ms Rossum's new embroidery design was inspired by his 1896 series of paintings - The Seasons - which features four mythical women each representing a season of the year.

She aims to complete each panel in the corresponding season, culminating by finishing the image of winter in December 2022.

"I wasn't planning to do anything next, but it only takes a few people to ask and I came up with something different," she said.

Mucha was an Art Nouveau illustrator and painter, whose work was also used in advertising campaigns.

"I'd not heard of the artist until I looked for new subjects but something around the four seasons makes some sense over the year," said Ms van Rossum.

Comprising nearly 120,000 stitches, the Big Four Seasons Stitch will measure about 33 x 18in (84 x 45cm) and is expected to take more than 1,000 hours to complete.

The stitcher estimates there are about 60 colours in the new design, whereas the Van Gogh replica only needed 16.

Ms van Rossum hopes to include a 24-hour stint of stitching and to do some public stitching to raise extra funds towards a target of £2,500 over the year-long challenge.

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