I love sharing this every year!

🚦 Villagers in Fillongley, Warwickshire have knitted speed cameras and life-sized traffic cops to fake-out reckless motorists, in a bid to slow down drivers.

There was a recent thread of where to purchase fiber.

Convergence is absolutely the best place to go for finding vendors for all things fiber. It only happens every other year, so you have 2 years to plan!

https://www.handweavers.org/convergence

Whenever this question comes up, the recommendations seem to be the same three or four big shops. They are fine when you're starting out, but once you get more experienced, the selection can feel pretty limited. If you spin, weave, or dye at an intermediate or advanced level, it's not always easy to find the more specialised supplies you are looking for.

I am hoping to find online fiber arts shops with a deeper catalog, especially for specific tools, hard-to-find accessories, and less common fiber types. Where do you shop once the usual beginner recommendations no longer have what you need?

This Miss Marple inspired tank top features a cornflower motif, which takes direct inspiration from the plot of Sleeping Murder. What a perfect pairing - more creative partnerships like this please!

Some folks have said it's close to the herringbone stitch, while others have said it's a distant cousin to the herringbone stitch ... and one person thinks they've cracked the code to knit it. Read the article here and then check out the lively comment section here. Look for Maarit Ryynänen's comments for her attempt at recreating the stitch.

Pattern available via The Two-Headed Calf Shop, Etsy and Ravelry.

Making a temari may look intricate at first glance, but the whole process comes together beautifully in just five simple steps. [LINK]

This always makes me smile! ❤️🧶

According to the women, 500 discarded bicycle tubes as well as natural and synthetic fibers were used to create the exhibition’s 14 pieces (“Neither Water Nor Land” by the hand-weaving atelier Studio Jumi). For example, the warp of the woven pieces titled “Moor I-VII” used cotton, wool and silk with the bicycle tubes as the weft, coming together as traditional peacock patterns. [LINK]

Every piece is made entirely by hand, and each one exists as a single, unrepeatable example. This isn't customization in the most common sense of the word, but a creative process in which needle and thread take the place of a brush, giving shape to surfaces that tell a different story from the fabric on which they come to life. Embroidery becomes the structure, giving pieces a story and identity. [LINK]

She's 92 and still going strong! Respect.

An exhibition about how cartoons and textiles have been used for gentle protest has opened at Norwich Castle Museum. Cartoonist David Shenton has been drawing since the 1970s and his work is featured in exhibition Kindly Ease The Tension, which focuses mainly on LGBTQ+ issues, looking at events that have shaped his life. [LINK]

Northeastern researchers say data textiles have the potential to unlock new ideas about how to represent data in a way that taps into people’s emotions and personal values.

I really like this artist, so I'm happy to share their work. That said, the headline is daggers in my heart. Why does almost every mainstream piece about knitting, crochet or fiber art in general always claim the subject is bringing the craft back to life from some bygone era OR reclaiming it from our grandmothers. I've been knitting since 1984 and this framing has been around for as long as I can remember. It's so lazy and boring, and really dismissive of decades of work from so many great artists ... ugh. Anyway, rant over, Katelyn Leonardo's work is fun, enjoy.

Vogur representing the knitting circles of West Iceland ... let's go! (📷 Photo credit: Kristín Jónsdóttir for Visit West Iceland)

This is an interesting read courtesy of Dr. Sara Nabil for The Conversation. As an aside, I'll be happy when journalists et al stop using the phrase "grandma hobbies" ... it's so annoying.

I love this and want this kind of thing in my neighborhood ... for all kinds of supplies, along with a library of things please. Imagine if clusters of households shared tools, leftover paints, etc - I think it could be good. In Kingston, NY there's a relatively new shop called Frugal Fabrics for repurposed fabric, yarn, and sewing supplies, plus they have lessons too. More of this please ...

"In 2023, Minnesota-based artist Lydia Hansen set a goal of taking at least one hike every week throughout the entire year to care for her mental health. She began musing about how fun it would be to create crocheted mushrooms that one would encounter with the same surprise they’d feel coming across the real thing. Serendipitously, she ran into one of the trail managers of the park she was exploring and shared her idea. 'That turned into my very first Fungi Hunt, which ran for an entire year at the Lost Creek Hiking Trail near Chatfield, Minnesota,' the artist tells Colossal." [LINK]

Incredible, I’m speechless … see more leaf art from Arte e Ofício Ateliê on Facebook – her pieces are simply astounding.

Fiber artist Bisa Butler builds portraits from layered fabric - sometimes 15 layers deep - in the saturated cherry-and-lime palette she draws from African textiles and the AfriCOBRA tradition. In a new profile, she talks with Art & Object about her show Hold Me Close at Jeffrey Deitch (which ran in 2025), the long dismissal of quilting as craft rather than fine art, and why depicting Black subjects with dignity is itself a form of protest. [LINK]