Editing Overlord Embroidery (section)

==Creation==
[[File:Making of the Overlord Embroidery.jpg|thumb|right|Part of the D-Day Story museum is dedicated to the creation of the embroidery.]]
The piece was commissioned by [[Lord Dulverton]] in 1968 and made by the [[Royal School of Needlework]] from designs by artist [[Sandra Lawrence]].<ref name=":0" />

In a speech delivered on 6 June 1978 Lord Dulverton described his motivation behind the commission.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.sandralawrence.co.uk/Overlord%20Embroideries.htm|title=Overlord Embroidery {{!}} designer and painter Sandra Lawrence|website=www.sandralawrence.co.uk|access-date=2018-04-20}}</ref>

{{Quote|text=The Embroidery is a tribute to our Country and Countrymen over the part played in defeating a great evil that sprang upon the Western World. It is not, and was never intended to be, a tribute to war, but to our people in whom it brought out in adversity so much that is good, determination, ingenuity, fortitude and sacrifice. It focusses upon one historic and explicitly important campaign, to which the world conflict had led and made possible; and the Bayeux Tapestry nearly 900 years before D-Day certainly beckoned it to be made.|sign=Lord Dulverton|source=}}

Lord Dulverton established a committee which included retired senior officers to advise on the project. In preparing her designs Sandra Lawrence studied archive photographs as research. Her subsequent sketches were then submitted to the committee for approval. After approval, she would then paint a colour version to the same size as the planned embroidery panel (2.4x0.9 metres). Then she would then use [[tracing paper]] to record the outlines of all the details. The original paintings from the design stage hang at the [[The Pentagon|Pentagon]], [[Washington, D.C.|Washington D.C.]]<ref name=":0" />

The team from the Royal School of Needlework used the technique called [[appliqué]] to bring the designs to life. Then attached to linen using a method known as [[pricking and pouncing]]. That is pricking thousands of tiny holes in a tracing paper template, placing them on a panel and applying a fine powder known as [[Pounce (powder)|pounce]]. This makes a trail of dots which are joined with a pencil to reveal the design.<ref name=":0" />

The embroidery was completed in January 1974.<ref name=":0" /> Since 1984 it has been housed in the D-Day Museum (now renamed [[The D-Day Story]]) in [[Southsea]], [[Portsmouth]].