Have you ever stood in an art exhibition, just absorbing the meaning and purpose of a piece? Well, for Melanie Kay, expressing meaning through her textile art is absolutely fundamental.

Through her work, she highlights the current trend towards mass advertising and resulting manufacture of desire. Combining conventional embroidery with non-conventional processes and materials, Melanie raises questions and stimulates debate.

It was only after an uninspiring stint working in a bank that Melanie, who now lives in Manchester, UK, took the plunge and returned to full-time education, focussing on her first love – embroidery.

She was delighted to achieve a First Class Honours degree in Textiles and Surface Pattern Design in Bolton, Lancashire. Her accolades include winning first prize in the Bradford Textile Society Design Competition, 2011 for a material created by non-conventional means, Embroiderers’ Guild Awards and a Masters Degree with Distinction.

Many of us were taught it’s impolite to stare at people, especially those who are ‘different.’ But you won’t be able to stop yourself when you see the people Daisy Collingridge creates. No worries, though. That’s exactly the kind of attention she is seeking.

Daisy’s collection of ‘Squishy People’ celebrates loose and flabby body parts through incredibly intricate costumes. Each costume features layer upon layer of jersey fabric ‘blobs,’ many of which are strategically weighted with plastic pellets. When worn by models who dance and strut about, it’s performance art the likes of which you’ve never seen. 

In this article, we learn how Burt, Daisy’s latest creation, came to life. It’s not only a fascinating behind-the-scenes view of Daisy’s techniques, but it’s also a peek into her whimsical thought process and candid joy in what she creates.

Born and raised in Greater London since 1990, Daisy is an artist with an education in design and driven by craft. She graduated from Central St. Martins with a fashion design degree, and she has exhibited with and is part of the 62 Group. Her work has also been exhibited at MAC Birmingham and the National Centre for Craft and Design in Sleaford, UK.

Greg Climer’s pixelated quilts are captivating, colourful portraits enabled through the use of technology, which he uses to augment a traditional craft into something truly modern and exciting.

His quilts are designed by taking photographic images or collages and converting them into a pixelated form, blurring the image without obscuring it. The pixel images are then digitally printed onto cotton, ready for construction into a quilt using traditional techniques. Alongside working on his quilts he creates ‘knitted films’ through the painstakingly slow process of recreating reels of film in knitted form, frame by frame, which he then re-animates into video format.

Greg holds a BA in theatre design and classical studies and an MFA in Design Technology. He started off as a pattern maker for costume design in theatre, then moved into the fashion industry. Currently, as a practising artist, he mixes his signature style of quilting and knitting with the use of technology. Greg is also an Assistant Professor at the Parsons School of Design, New York and was artist in residence at Museum of Art and Design, New York in 2016. His work has been shown in galleries around the US and is in the permanent collection of the Leslie Lohman Museum of Gay and Lesbian Art.

In this interview Greg shares how his career developed from learning to sew as a child. He talks about his promotion of equality and gay rights through his work. Find out how he’s driven by his love of innovation, to use high-tech approaches within a traditional craft. He explains in detail how he constructs his playful quilt portraits and shares his advice on how to push your boundaries by using ideas from outside of your field to become more experimental with your processes.

After a career in business, training and coaching, Claire Benn returned to her first love – textiles. Twenty-five years on, she is one of the UK’s leading mixed media and textile artists.

Based in Surrey, UK, Claire has worked as an author, curator and educator in art textiles. She has published a series of books about her specialist form of textile art and runs workshops in the UK, Germany, Canada and the USA.

Claire is inspired by nature, in particular by the desolate, and yet highly textured, landscapes of the Arctic, Alaska and New Mexico – places where she enters an experience of emptiness and timelessness, evoking thoughts and feelings that she interprets into her textile art. Over the years her practice has become quieter and slower – so much so that her social media accounts and blog are entitled ‘Her Quiet Materials’.

In this article, we learn more about Claire’s inspiration and motivation and how her journey with textiles has taken her to a more peaceful and meditative pace of both life and work.

In a world crying out for sustainability, equality and empowerment, this inspiring Indian project shows us the way forward.

Saheli Women is an ethical enterprise run by The Institute for Philanthropy and Humanitarian Development (IPHD India), a non-profit organisation based in the village of Bhikamkor, near Jodhpur, India. Women from the village are given the chance to use their beautiful embroidery skills in the fashion business, to gain financial independence.

Louise Jessup and Juliette Laville are two young designers from a fashion and textile background. They both have a huge appreciation for the craftsmanship and beauty of Indian textiles. After taking up internships with Saheli Women, Juliette and Louise started a development project to further assist the women of the village.

They gave the Saheli Women creative freedom to interpret Juliette and Louise’s new jacket designs, letting the women’s personalities shine through in their stitched work. Juliette and Louise wanted to make better use of the women’s outstanding embroidery skills, giving them a chance to express themselves and showcase their work.