This is the first blog article I’ve written in a while, as I’ve been lucky enough to have a lot of the past two months travelling and meeting Stitch members from all over the world.
My travels kicked off with a visit to the Stitch Community in Hobart, which I visited during the midwinter “Dark Mofo” festival.
I then flew directly from Hobart to Dublin, to take part in the Big Stitch Trip in Ireland, which had me travelling the Emerald Isle with over 40 members from the US, Canada, UK, Australia, Singapore, and New Zealand. This was closely followed by the amazing Stitch Together 2026 Conference in Bath, where I spent a monumental 3 days with another 80 Stitch members.
The three events together made for an incredible trip for so many reasons, and many of the members I met contributed ideas that will help us set the direction for Stitch in the year ahead.
Our plan is to turn some of the sessions from the Bath conference into videos and presentations that all members can access, so look out for announcements about them in the coming weeks.
In the meantime, however, I really wanted to share some of the joy I got to experience with all the wonderful members on the Ireland trip, as well as give you a tiny taste of what our wonderful Hobart community is like.
I don’t know about you, but I don’t normally enjoy hearing about other people’s holidays, as it usually just makes me sad I missed out.
But I think this trip is an exception, because what made the experience so special isn’t really just about travel at all.
It is about the Stitch community itself. The journey captured so much of what makes Stitch special, and in particular how a group of strangers can enrich each other’s lives in ways we couldn’t have imagined.
It made me feel proud to be a Stitch member. If you read on, I hope you feel the same.
Andrew Dowling
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