Today I’m talking with textile artist, author, and lifelong experimenter Jayne Emerson, whose work has been seen in fashion houses like Dior, Chanel, and Louis Vuitton, and whose heart now lives in teaching, generosity, and creative freedom through the No Rules Textile Society.
We talk about living in the countryside and how place shapes rhythm, why samples and “thought piles” matter, and how years of quiet experimentation laid the groundwork for a creative life that doesn’t need permission or explanation. Jayne shares about her shift from working in secret and selling ideas quietly to openly sharing processes, failures, and curiosity.
This is a conversation about practice without outcome, making without justification, and trusting that everything leads to something.
Episode Seventy-Seven | Seeds and Samples: The Work Beneath the Work with Jayne Emerson
0:00 Intro
0:30 Meet Jayne Emerson
2:39 Life in the Countryside
4:04 Seeds of Ideas and “Thought Piles”
14:45 Prompts and Play
23:46 From Secrecy to Sharing
28:06 Generosity and Creative Impact
31:14 Curiosity as a Compass
34:09 Trusting Your Process
39:30 Style and Freedom
45:33 Gathering What You Love
49:59 Letting Work Become
55:28 Creative Breakthroughs
59:44 How to Connect With Jayne
1:01:18 Outro
Based in rural Gloucestershire, Jayne loves to re-imagine and mix-up textile techniques including applique, embroidery and patchwork, selling her conceptual samples to clients ranging from Chanel and Louis Vuitton to Anthropologie and Boden.
With 30 years of experience in the industry, Jayne started organizing her ideas into word prompts and filming her experimental, creative process.
Her inspirational library now includes five online courses, Experimental Needle Felting, No Rules Patchwork, Water Soluble Magic, Gel Printing on and with Textiles and No Rules Hand Stitching. Her membership No Rules Textile Society is home to 45+ mini-courses and an incredible community of textile adventurers.
www.jaynemerson.co.uk
www.norulestextilesociety.com
Referenced in the Podcast:
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