An enormous thank you to everyone who took part in this year’s #SeptTextileLove Instagram challenge, our old friends and all the new ones this year.

This year’s #SeptTextileLove was the biggest and the most joyful yet. We loved how you all made it work for you, with your different creative interpretations of the prompts, choosing the prompts that suited your work, going at your own pace, and even posting three prompts together. Not all prompts suit everyone, but we thought that the prompts you found trickier actually had the most creative, inspiring, and sometime laugh out loud responses and conversations. We were singing David Bowie’s Changes for Day 29 all day, too!

The best thing for us, from the viewer’s side, is that as well as feasting our eyes on gorgeous, inspiring photos is how much you share about yourselves behind your work in your writing, which gave us a greater depth of understanding to your work. We really felt included in your struggles and successes, loved your stories and the lovely non-judgmental and supportive atmosphere encompassing the challenge.

We would like to give a special shout out to participants for whom English is not their first language. We hadn’t appreciated how difficult it would be to translate some of our prompts. We love how there can be multiple interpretations of one word, but it makes translating difficult, on top of working out how it relates to textiles and your practice. A good example was @nzcat26’s post on Day 27: Pattern, which translates to a lot of different words in Spanish (we looked it up!) and @olya._ .yuz’s post for Day 26: Textile Indulgence – not an easy prompt anyway!

Thank you for so many lovely comments, we just picked out a few:

“I’ve actively chosen not to participate this year: I’m starting the next stage of my art degree this month aged 64, having kept a dream alive for more than forty years. I’m so grateful for the part textiles have played in this dream kept achievement. Simple creative possibilities and great company. I’ve been encouraged and supported in these ambitions by so many textile people and it’s a real joy to see the faces, the work, the trials and triumphs from the sidelines. Do not underestimate the importance and power this #septtextilelove has for those observing and reading and thinking maybe one day.”

@pinehillnotes in the comments for one of our posts for Day 2: Discipline / Craft.

“All my journeys, all my looking up and looking down- looking far and looking close- I’m catching ideas, visual moments, lines and textures, colours and patterns. When I look at your work, I’m embracing the journeys and  inspiration you’ve also had too.  This month of textile art community has brought me close to so many beautiful artists and new inspiration. Thank you @seam collective“

Excerpt from @botanicalbeing’s post for Day 22: Inspiration / influence.

“Thank you @seam_collective it’s been a joy to follow this year. I missed taking part but you can’t always do everything”

@gailbaxterlace in the comments for one of our posts for Day 30: Favourite post from another participant.

“… I am so not a joiner but I have found this challenge so irresistible and really pivotal in helping me understand that I am an artist and mustn’t shy away from that. I’m on this path now.”

Excerpt from @nzcat26’s comment on her post for Day 22: Inspiration / influence.

Thank you again to everyone who took part in #SeptTextileLove for creating such a wonderful non-judgmental and supportive atmosphere that was a joyful celebration of textiles. Thank you also to all the members of seam collective who picked three of their favourite posts each day – it was sooo difficult to choose from such gorgeous posts!

We hope to see you again next year!

Penny and Helen

PS: If you missed #SeptTextileLove check out the hashtag on Instagram; reading everyone’s final posts for Day 30: Favourite post from another participant will give you a great overview of the challenge.