Are you ready for #SeptTextileLove tomorrow? We can’t wait; gorgeous textiles and conversation – bliss!

It promises to be a joyous month of sharing and celebrating textiles. You can take part from anywhere in the world, all you need is a love of textiles, an Instagram account and then respond to as many or as few of the prompts, below, as you like using the hashtags #SeptTextileLove and #SeptTextileLove23. To help you get organised you can also download our pdf planner.

For each of the 30 days of September there is a different textile-related prompt for Instagrammers to interpret on their Instagram feed. You can respond to as many or as few prompts as you like. Just include these two exact hashtags #SeptTextileLove and  #SeptTextileLove23 with each post – so that all participants can see your posts. (It’s also helpful if you include the prompt you are responding to, as sometimes different time zones can make it difficult to tell which post is for which day or prompt.)

This year it might be more difficult to see everyone’s posts for #SeptTextileLove due to some changes Instagram has been rolling out. When you search for the hashtag #SeptTextileLove you may not have the option to select ‘Recent’ posts any more. You may only have the choice of ‘Top posts’ or ‘Filter’. If you select ‘Filter’ you can then select ‘Recent top posts’ – hopefully this will stop you getting confused checking out previous years’ posts!  This is why we are using two hashtags this year and we also recommend that you follow both hashtags #SeptTextileLove and #SeptTextileLove23, so that posts are also delivered to your feed. 

We have changed half the prompts from last year – we hope you like them! We love the in-depth conversations we have choosing new prompts and how diverse your responses are. Here are our ideas behind three of the more tricky prompts:

Regenerative – apparently the focus these days is on being Regenerative rather than Sustainability. To compare:

Sustainability is focused on simply reducing human activities’ harm to the planet. Regenerative sustainability, on the other hand, goes beyond reducing harm and actively seeks to restore and revitalize natural systems through innovative and restorative practices.

Regenerative Sustainability at Ecocart.io

The idea is that reducing harm, still involves harm; whereas restoration and revitalization improves our natural systems and our planet. We are keen to know ways and share how we can all be regenerative working with textiles.

Secret weapon – a dictionary definition is a great help for this prompt:

Someone’s secret weapon is a thing or person which they believe will help them achieve something and which other people do not know about.

Definition of ‘secret weapon’ at Collinsdictionary.com

World – here we were thinking about world textiles, the unique textiles and textile processes created by different groups of people, including indigenous peoples, around the world; but your response could be about your textile travels around the world, depictions of the world…

We can’t wait to reconnect with old friends and meet new ones, and see all the different ways you interpret our prompts and of course, enjoy all your gorgeous images of textiles! See you tomorrow! 

Penny Wheeler

Note: If you enjoy talking about textiles do join seam collective and The Loom Shed for a collaboration of informal making and conversation during #SeptTextileLove! Each week in September, The Loom Shed will host an hour’s online session via Zoom with a few seam artists. We’ll be making together as we talk about the previous week’s #SeptTextileLove prompts, seam’s A Visible THREAD exhibition and our shared love of textiles. Bring your stitching, knitting, weaving, crochet or whatever you’re working on at the moment… and join the conversation. Read more in Lou Baker’s blog post seam collective x The Loom Shed: meet the makers behind #SeptTextileLove.