However, visitors to Stirling Castle's refurbished Renaissance royal palace will soon be dazzled by her work.

For Mary (59), who lives in Uddington, near Douglas, is part of a talented Scottish team creating two beautiful cloths of estate embroidered with the heraldry of James V's French queen, Mary of Guise.

The first, which is nearing completion, will be a metre tall and a centrepiece of the sumptuous Queen's Bedchamber.

Over the last six months she has made the shield bearing Mary of Guise's complex coat of arms, which will be at the heart of the first cloth of estate.

Made using coloured leathers and metal and silk threads, the shield shows Scotland's lion rampant on one side and the Guise heraldry on the other.

"It's lovely to think that in years to come people will look at them and know it was our group of embroiderers who made them," said Mary.

Mary was taught embroidery at the age of four by her grandmother, Elizabeth McDonald — and still has a tablecloth on which she sewed lazy daisies in chain stitch.

For more information on this story, pick up a copy of this week's Carluke and Lanark Gazette which is in the shops now.