Episode 52: From Rusty Metal to Works of Art with Tracy Fox : Dyer, Print Maker & Artist

Tracy Fox

There are many strings to Tracy Fox’s bow, she describes herself as a dyer, print maker and artist creating the most beautiful art fabrics in her home studio in Manchester. She also uses her fabric to make stunning art quilts and has exhibited her work and sold her cloth at various craft shows over the years. It was at one of those shows, the Nantwich Quilters Exhibition and Fabric Sale that she was approached to take over the management and running of the show, which she has done ever since. Five years on, she’s now launching another show, this time in Manchester – The Great Northern Textile Show will take place later this month.

The Great Northern Textile Show will showcase crafts people and artists from the worlds of textiles, quilting, yarn crafts, embroidery, felting, spinning and other disciplines. There will also be craft guilds and organisations on hand to help visitors learn new skills if they want to add to their own repertoires.

One of Tracy’s scarves dyed using leaves & rust

I went along to Tracy’s home studio to hear about her own creative journey, the way she creates her beautiful fabrics and what she uses them for along with her hopes for The Great Northern Textile Show too.

Fabric being dyed

You can listen to the Episode here

You can find Tracy’s website here.

Tracy’s ‘Fire’ dyed cloth
Tracy’s finished Lockdown art quilt project using some of her ‘fire’ dyed cloth

More information about the Great Northern Textile Show can be found here.

One of Tracy’s Shibori cloths



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The music featured in this episode is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.
The Making Stitches logo was designed by Neil Warburton at iamunknown.

You can support Making Stitches Podcast with running costs through Ko-fi.
Making Stitches Podcast is supported by the Making Stitches Shop which offers Making Stitches Podcast merchandise for sale as well as Up the Garden Path crochet patterns created by me & illustrated by Emma Jackson.

Making Stitches Podcast is presented, recorded and edited by Lindsay Weston.

A Flock of Canary Craftivists – Bonus Episode

The Manchester Flock at Manchester’s Central Library

Hello there! Although Making Stitches is supposedly on a summer break, here’s a little bonus episode all about a project I’ve been involved with recently which began with a previous episode of this podcast. Back in May, I released Episode 25 of Making Stitches which featured a chat I had with Sarah Corbett from the Craftivist Collective. In it, she told me about her plan for a summer of ‘craftivism’ featuring flocks of Canary Craftivists staging public displays of crafting to raise awareness of environmental issues ahead of this year’s Cop 26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Galvanized by Sarah’s infectious enthusiasm, I found myself co-ordinating a small flock of canary craftivists in Manchester. This episode is the story of how it came about and how it went. Blighted by the ‘pingdemic’ our flock was small but, dare I say it(?), perfectly formed and we were able to engage passers-by in our craft and the message behind it. I do hope you enjoy listening!

You can listen to the episode here.

The Manchester Flock stitching at the Emmeline Pankhurst statue

If you would like to find out more about the Canary Craftivists and the Craftivist Collective please visit the Craftivist Collective website, Instagram or Twitter.


The music featured in this episode is Make You Smile by RGMusic from Melody Loops.

You can support Making Stitches Podcast with running costs through Ko-fi.

Making Stitches Podcast is presented, recorded and edited by Lindsay Weston.

Evie & Gemma from the Manchester Flock