Her panel is part of a plan to create a 90-metre long artwork to mark Bonnie Prince Charlie's glorious return to Scotland - up to and including his famous victory at the Battle of Prestonpans in September 1745.

The idea came from the Baron of Prestoungrange after a visit to Bayeux in France. The project is being co-ordinated by the Battle of Prestonpans 1745 Heritage Trust as a way of portraying the successes, hope and determination of Bonnie Prince Charlie and his men, rather than concentrating on his defeat at Culloden.　

Community groups and individuals across Scotland will be recreating 92 different scenes for the huge tapestry, which will go on tour around Scotland before finding a permanent home in Prestonpans.

"My job is to go help the different groups and individuals to make the tapestry as uniform as possible," says Mrs Wilkie. "It is a very ambitious project and one which brings together stitchers throughout Scotland, all working together on a voluntary basis to create a wonderful work of art."

The panels have been created for the Battle Heritage Trust by artist Andrew Crummy in the manner of the famous cartoon from 1745 in which Johnnie Cope, the Commander of the Government forces, confirmed his own defeat to his superiors at Berwick, whilst Colonel Gardiner, the Hanoverian hero, lay dying in Tranent Manse.

"We needed something simple that would be achievable for different groups and individuals to embroider, so a cartoon style was perfect," explains Mr Crummy.
"This is a very ambitious project, but we have had a fantastic response, and all the panels have been taken by embroiderers throughout Scotland."

Mr Crummy spent six months researching the project, which has to be as historically accurate as possible.

"It is a huge undertaking", he says. "There are between 400 and 500 references in the whole thing and getting all the facts has involved extensive research. There is lots of detail that no one could possibly know about, but we are doing our best."

The content of each artwork has already been checked by historian Martin Marguilles, author of The Battle of Prestonpans, but following this, each panel needs to be verified by the community depicted in it.

"Each of the panels of the Prestonpans Tapestry tells a particular phase of the Prince’s journey, and the Trust is determined to ask each community represented to give its opinion on and support for the way Andrew has chosen to represent it," says Gordon Prestoungrange, the Baron of Prestoungrange.

It is hoped that the various panels will be completed over the next few months, ready to be collected and sewn together in June 2010. The tapestry will then be paraded in France and throughout the Highlands to Edinburgh following the same route as Bonnie Prince Charlie. It will then be brought back to Prestonpans for its permanent home.