I am a designer/maker based in Faversham and Medway.
My work involves the use of recycled paper, plastic and textiles combined with digital imagery. I am currently working on a range of accessories made from recycled plastic bags.

Location: Faversham | Medway
Contact: sian.ffrangcon@btinternet.com

My aim is to bring a new dimension to textile design, examining various making processes in fabric and fibres. My work is individual and hand crafted. Although I have considered mass production of some designs, as a possible avenue to take, I feel that this would depreciate the essence of individuality in my work.
I undertake commissions for fashion accessories & home furnishings but my real passion is in the creation of textile wall hangings using mixed fibres incorporating traditional needlecraft methods.

Location: Chatham
Website: http://textile-art.net
Contact: dee.hudson@textile-art.net

I am a textile artist working in contemporary textiles, specialising in batik, printing and machine embroidery.

My greatest love is colour, and I usually work on a large scale and enjoy working on designs, especially when I’m experimenting with techniques, materials and colours.

Location: Faversham
Contact: penny.watts4@btinternet.com

Dark Horse creates unique jewellery & accessories that are handcrafted from the finest leather & textiles. Offering an irreverent take on the quintessentially British lifestyle & its eccentricities, each piece combines traditional techniques with fashion-forward styling….. Gorgeous colourways, heavy embellishment and attention to detail all typify these saddlery-inspired statement pieces.

Location: Faversham
Website: www.darkhorseornament.co.uk
Contact: info@darkhorseornament.co.uk

I have just completed a Ba (hons) in Fine art at The University of Creative Arts, Canterbury. My practice tends to develop greatly around textile based processes, however I also do a lot of printing.

The piece shown in the photo is from a series of needle felted pieces I made, depicting images from photos that have great sentimental value to me. The image is preserved in something much stronger that the paper of the original photograph.

Location: Aylesham Canterbury
Website: Emily-Quincey-Art-and-Textiles
Contact: squidgy_chess_piece@hotmail.com

My work is about materials and technique while exploring the visual world around me, and issues that are important to me. I enjoy using textiles and textile techniques, though I do not do so exclusively. I have been interested in using waste plastics to draw attention to the pollution they create. I am also exploring the potential of used colour catchers. The stuff of human detritus is often my medium.

Location: Maidstone
Website: www.sues-stuff.co.uk | www.mvan.info
Contact: suepritchard@tesco.net

I trained as a fine artist and my approach to my textile work uses the same conventions and language. Interpretation of my ideas in fabric and other found materials means the work is approachable and familiar.
I often work on collaborations developing a range of work based on environmental themes from the natural and observed world to the memories of journeys and places. I continue to exhibit new work as an individual and as examples of these collaborations.

My main employment is as a  free-lance artist working on commissions both for public spaces and for the home environment. In addition to exhibiting work, I give talks and workshops at  various venues including museums, galleries and colleges of further education. Part-time tutoring for Adult Education and at West Dean College are a regular part of my teaching practice.

‘Cas Holmes has a down-to-earth approach to life and her art takes her on flights of fancy,  which evoke folk cultures, traditions and mythology with an abandon which ignores all barriers. Sometimes figurative, sometimes wholly abstract she has an unerring faith in her feeling for her materials. Confidence pours from her work and with it a power and sophistication that brings to it an almost religious sensation of ancient wisdom revisited.

Her work is inevitably influenced by her visits to Japan but more as someone who would use that influence to reaffirm her own strengths. That is her originality.

Her materials are overwhelmingly organic and appear to have been given new life. Paper ages and crinkles with a will of its own and is made exquisitely into a Japanese style panels allowing  light to pass through, or are incorporated into one of her unique quilted hangings. Behind it all there is a sense of grand design under the control of the artist. It is both decorative and rich in symbolism.

A sense of provocation displays her commitment to art as part of life and shows richly in her dedication to community projects into which she throws herself like an avenging demon.’ – Ralph Steadman

Location: Maidstone
Website: www.casholmes.textilearts.net
Contact: casholmes28@yahoo.co.uk

I work in fabric and on paper, using a range of techniques and in a variety of sizes. Different types of printmaking, photography and processes using new media have featured in recent pieces. The foundation of my work is drawing and is expressed through the stitched line.

My ‘layered embroideries’ are made of many types of fabric, sewn together by hand and machine. These are then cut through and sewn over with hand and machine stitching. I use recycled fabrics, lace, string, tapestry, vintage images and found ephemera to create ‘small worlds’ . Travel and memory combine to influence my choice of subject matter, and I am particularly interested in recording the contrasts and impact of the natural and built environment.

Location: Tunbridge Wells
Website: www.annekellytextiles.com
Contact: acegkelly@hotmail.com

Love painting, love creating textiles using a variety of sewing, painting, dyeing and embellishing techniques.
Still lifes featuring beds, fabrics, windows with weird reflections, dynamic fiery landscapes have all featured in my recent exhibitions of paintings.  My textiles are inspired by the colour or compositions of my favourite artists, or by my travels around the world.

A selection of my art textile pieces will be on show at ‘Artoco’, 33a High Street, Ticehurst, East Sussex TN5 7AS, as part of an exhibition called “Threads” which runs from 23rd June – 10th July 2010.

My latest commission is the painting of a 40 foot wall mural for a nursery in London, and I’m hoping this will lead to further work, painting both inside and outside.

My paintings will be on show as part of the Adhoc Art Company’s exhibitions at the following venues this summer:
*  The Pilgrims Hospice, Canterbury – until September;
20% of all sales donated to the Hospice.
*  Walletts Court Country Hotel, Spa and Restaurant, Westcliffe, St. Margaret’s, nr. Dover – 1-30 July, as part of their season of Comtemporary Art Exhibitions: ”Creative Coastline”.
*  Chimeara Gallery, Tontine Street, Folkestone, new paintings will be on show as part of their next exhibition ‘Summer Breeze’ during August.

My own studio at White Cliffs Bungalow, The Front, St. Margaret’s Bay (up on the cliffs overlooking the Channel, between the Lighthouse and the Bay), will be open most weekends to view a selection of paintings and smaller textiles between 9 – 6.  Do drop in if you are walking along the cliffs, or phone 01304 851867 in advance to make sure of opening if you are travelling some distance.

Location: St. Margaret’s Bay, near Dover
Website: www.joanweston.co.uk
Contact: joanwestonquilts@hotmail.com

Sam Crow was born in the Far East, and has been gradually travelling West ever since with a needle in one hand and a biro in the other, scribbling fashion and costume ideas and bizarre characters ; absorbing all the rich textures, colours and faces on display , and developing an insatiable appetite for everything creative or theatrical along the way.

A love for the imaginary on display and a disturbing passion for textiles eventualy took her to Central St Martins to study theatre design, specializing in costume.

Happiest when creating things with her hands, surrounded by fabrics and drawing or sewing implements (heaven being an endless textile shop  or  wardrobe crammed with costumes in which the imagination can come out to play), she can be found designing and creating bags,  accessories, creatures and costumes, scribbling with biro, drawing with stitches, or spending time with her gorgeous even more creative family: Laurence, Poppy and Jereme. Unfortunately, the moments in between these happy times are filled with sleep or enforced rest, as she is having to endure chronic fatigue syndrome, which drives her insane as she is obsessively creative and hates to waste a single moment…….. often having to be dragged off the sewing machine or having drawing implements confiscated!!!!

Her Drawing With Stitches artwork combines both the needle and the pen, using the stitch as the final mark, and (when not pure stitch on white cotton ) fabrics as a palette and canvas.

The subject matter- still heavily influenced by her love of costume design and fashion drawings – is always depicted figuritvely, and focuses mainly on the female form – costumed and masked by her role, or seen in very private moments of repose … but also depicts characters from life or imagination that want to come out to pose!

Sam always has a smile for creativity, and a great love for stories and the characters they contain – imaginary or real.  She hopes her work will make you smile too, and perhaps give you a glimpse  or a head start at imagining the stories surrounding each character on display.

Location: Dover
Website: samcrowart.wordpress.com
Contact: sam-crow@hotmail.co.uk