June Meeting 2025

June is our last talk before the summer break and it was delivered by Debbie and Gavin Harding of Doodle Craft designs, best known for recreating board games in stitch. Gavin delivered the talk, giving us a brief history of blackwork going from the name Spanish work seen on garments during the reign of Henry VIII to the more modern approach of using varying thread weights and colour to give a more painterly effect. He told us how the business started after Debbie took up redundancy following diagnosis of Hypermobile Elher Danlos Syndrome, and how the whole family is involved. He explained how the designs were inspired and how they are created using a mixture of photographs and computer software before Debbie stitches every design to ensure that they work.

 

Debbie, who was conserving her energy for the following day's workshop, fielded the technical questions at the end of the talk.

 

We were also lucky enough to handle and look in detail at examples of Debbie’s exquisite cross stitch and black work designs, some of which can use up to 86 thread colours. The eagle-eyed amongst the group had spotted her Koi design which was featured in the May/June 2025 edition of Stitch Magazine.

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