She had joked with her husband ahead of the afternoon launch that the turnout may be modest, she said, but had brought along a bag of needle-crafted items which were gladly received by the audience.
"Needlecraft is an incredibly positive thing for women.
"They love doing it, they love looking at it, and they love sharing it.
"Women make friends over it. It's a kind of networking thing for us.
"Most of the things women do in the course of their normal day lack a completion point, but here is something that has an end where you can say 'I did that, I've got something to show for it'."
She said needlecraft offered the reward of achievement, "particularly in the domestic context - it's the domestic stuff that interests me the most".
McLeod said needlecraft buffs also brought a positive feeling. "In the book there's photographs of pottery and we can look at that and say, 'well that's Tuscan pottery' and we know where it comes from. You can also look at needlecraft and it speaks really strongly of a time and a place and it's always associated with positive feelings," she said.
"And when you've worked in journalism, for example, and interviewed some very difficult people it's actually really nice to do something like this that gives you only positive feelings."
