Design. | Make. | Create. | Community.

Since 2007 Artybird Carnforth has been a creative textile & art school in the North West of England. We seek to create individual textile makers with strong, original visions and voices.  We achieve this is by fusing strong design practice with the
skills and techniques needed to create unique, beautiful textiles.
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Our teaching is led by the principles of City & Guilds training whilst remaining flexible to individual learning needs.  The school’s creativity, and our greatest strength, is the thriving community of artists and makers that inspire and nurture all of us.

Artybird Online.

We have taken our approach to creativity and learning into the digital space, allowing students across the world to be able to access our courses, get the support they need and learn in their own time.


Your Own Learning Path

Our courses fit together to let you create your very own curriculum, focusing on the knowledge and skills that interests you.

Knowledge & Skills

Each course comprises a mixture of video demonstrations, pdf downloads and worksheets to make the content as easy as possible to learn and use.


Experiment & Discover

Design is critical to making something unique.  Each course has been created with design in mind to let you play and experiment to find your voice.

Best Practices

Our school is a recognised Centre for Excellence allowing you access to leading best practice in creative textile and art.


Live Learning

We bring the community together regularly for online video seminars where tutors and students can build on their knowledge and share their work.


Peer Learning

Join our community of supportive textile makers and artists where you can ask questions, learn and share your creative journey

Learn the Art of Making

We will help you unlock your potential so you can grow as a textile maker, developing your own creative voice and become inspired to take your artistry beyond what you think is possible.


Slow Education.

Our approach is based on individual learning needs, exploring and experimenting with ideas and skills to develop and progress.  This can not be done in a compressed manner so we encourage you to take your learning at your own pace and enjoy your time with us. 

This is ‘slow education’.
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Championing textile making!

Can you imagine a world without textiles? It is easy to take for granted. Although technology allows us to do great things, there is a risk we can lose the textile skills that have been with us for nearly 30,000 years!
At Artybird Carnforth we embrace new technology and seek to experiment and try new things. But that is in service to keeping the skills of felt-making, weaving, creative textiles, dressmaking, dyeing and printing, and embroidery alive and thriving.

We feel it is vital that in order to progress we ensure that we don’t lose touch with our past.  Industrial machines can make clothing and textiles quickly and cost effectively at mass scale but there is also a place for the traditional practices. 

In fact, nothing compares to the experience of using your mind, hands and eyes to make something, with love and attention, from your imagination and turn it into something that you can touch, feel and treasure.
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