Lydie Gardner – November 2018

Lydie’s story started many years ago when she was living in a small village on Dartmoor and a neighbour, Brian Froud brought his Granny to the pub.  Granny was in fact a puppet!  One day Jim Henson, creator of the Muppets, came into the pub and, as a result of the meeting, Brian went to America to make puppets.  
Several years later he returned with a wife, Wendy, who made dolls and puppets and she asked Lydie to make clothes for them.  One thing lead to another and Lydie ended up dressing puppets and dolls for various projects including Prince Charles, Princess Ann and Mark Phillips for Spitting Image and a large chicken for a Paxo advert.  She also made dolls for Jim Henson based on his film Dark Crystal.
Lydie moved away so this initial career came to an end.  She then went on to follow a Diploma in Stitched Textiles at Windsor and teach embroidery.  She is currently a member of the South West Textile Group exhibiting all over the country. 

​Lydie was a very generous speaker as she showed us many examples of her work and explained in detail their construction.  The “When I grow old I will wear purple” puppet and the “7 deadly sins” dolls were my favourites.

Report and photos by Ros

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