Children’s literature gives us a means of discovering and passing on our own stories and glimpsing to worlds beyond our own. Preserving and reinterpreting traditional stories from my childhood drove the narrative of this concept. Written by Hans Christian Andersen in 1835 The Princess and the Pea tells the story of a princess seeking shelter from a storm. The queen doubts her claims to be a princess and places a pea under an abundance of mattresses, only a princess could be sensitive enough to feel the pea through the layers of bedding. I collaborated with textile artist Nella Upton to create the illusion of a stack of mattress in a giant textile piece. Focusing on the princess’s moments on the bed we see her mistaking the discomfort from the pea for the tightness of her clothes tearing off her layers only for her to later discover the true reason for her irritation.