Back in mid January I was pondering whether or not to do a hashtag challenge over on Instagram. I had loved the idea of word prompts ever since my time at Central St Martins when we were given a brief by the International Wool Secretariat that entirely consisted of adjectives! I was surprised at how inspired I was and how these descriptions gave my, highly experimental work, a boundary and a focus.
So in mid January 2021 I put out a post on Instagram and committed to leading a month long challenge called February Fabric Recipes. It was pretty terrifying, I was so worried that no one would join in, but the response was wonderful. It involved a lot of work, responding to everyone and sharing their work in my stories, but it was so rewarding. I learnt a lot, the feedback was invaluable and it helped me realise how much I love teaching and sharing my processes. The prompts encouraged play and the use of new textile techniques, it was lovely to see everyone trying new things. #fabricrecipes is now established as a hashtag and i will definitely be running the challenge again next year with a whole new set of prompts.
The whole experience gave me the confidence to launch a small membership group called The No Rules Textile Society. I had been thinking about this for a while, and in the last week of the challenge, I decided to launch it. We pick a textile prompt a month, allowing us plenty of time to experiment, chat and dream. If you would like to find out more click here
