Thread Counts re-imagines the Scottish textile-making ecosystem from the perspective of makers, to realise a place where they can flourish.
The Maker Survey invites individual textile makers to share their knowledge of collective resources and existing support systems for their practices. It comes in two parts – the first asks high level questions about what you make, where and how. The second offers an opportunity for in-depth reflection on the role for textile making in your life. The first will take just a few minutes of your time. For the second, we encourage you to allow yourself uninterrupted time to go through the questions. At the end, we’ll generate a summary of your responses that you can keep and reflect on. You might also want to keep a notebook handy too, in case any of the questions we ask spark other ideas for you.
Please complete part one of the Maker Survey by Wednesday 21 October 2026. If you have any queries, please contact the Project Team.
The Maker Survey is for people who currently practise textile making in Scotland (more details below) and can be saved as you go.
Who is the Maker Survey for?
The Maker Survey is for people who currently practise textile making in Scotland, including those whose work crosses geographical, creative or professional boundaries:
- professional textile makers or textile businesses
- designer-makers, artists or craft practitioners
- those working in textiles alongside another job or career
- those developing an emerging practice
- those practising traditional or heritage textile skills
- those using textile processes within their practice / business
You may be:
- self-taught or formally trained
- making an income from your practise or making textiles as a serious unpaid practice
- working alone (self-employed / freelance), with employees, or as part of a collective
- making textiles for sale, research, community activity, heritage, wellbeing or other purposes, to commission or to teach
- a member of a professional organisation or an informal group
- making textiles alongside work in other disciplines and / or sectors
You don’t need to describe yourself as a ‘textile maker’ to take the Maker Survey.
Please forward this Survey on to Scotland-based textile makers if you:
1. collaborate with or commission them to make components of your work,
2. practice textile making as a hobby, and have been taught by, provided with access to equipment or studios, or purchased materials from them.
If you are a supporter of or work with textile makers but don’t make textiles yourself, make textiles solely within a larger organisation on their behalf or share your textile making knowledge solely as a paid employee in a formal education setting, there are other ways for you to contribute to our research..
Guidance and tips on completing part two of the Maker Survey.
* Everything that we ask is optional, you do not have to answer any questions that you do not feel comfortable with.
* The more you tell us, the more confident we can be that any recommendations we make will address collective need, and will be representative of the diversity among our community of textile making practice.
* Where we offer a set of options or examples in response to questions, these are typical for makers working in Scotland and / or the UK. If your experience relates to another context and / or is more specialised than the options given, please use the ‘other’ option to tell us more about this.
* If your use or sharing of textile making happens in a non-financial setting (e.g. via guilds or peer sharing), please answer only those questions that are relevant to you. These responses will all add to the evidence that helps inform what support textile makers need.
* If you create objects with your textiles (e.g. garments, homewares, interiors); curate textiles for exhibitions or archives; write/talk about textiles for specialist or general audiences; sell equipment for textile making; or produce fibres, we would like you tell us about that in the questions that are relevant to you.
* If you feel that your practice is aligned with textile making in any way, please tell us how textile making fits alongside this in the questions that are relevant to you.
* By design, the Survey focuses on individual practice; however, we recognise that making often takes place within a wider, community and / or family context. The Survey focuses some attention on textile making that is aligned with creative industries models, to enable us to make robust policy recommendations. Furthermore, as makers, we recognise that caring, family, health and community aren’t things that interfere with making, but are often part of the conditions through which making exists. The Survey is, therefore, a starting point that builds from existing frameworks, and we will explore alternative models in more depth during the follow up workshops.
Survey PART ONE
Survey PART TWO
More information about part two of the survey will be shared here shortly.
