Off The Frame: what you made, September 2026

A while ago we started asking customers a simple question by email: have you been tufting lately? We expected a few short answers. What came back were photos, stories and whole projects, from first rugs made at the kitchen table to a four-part series carried through the streets.

So we are turning it into a monthly habit: Off The Frame.

Every month we will show what you have been making, with credit to the maker. This first edition has eleven makers from nine countries. It does not matter which yarn you used or how long you have been tufting. If you made it, we want to see it.

On the wall and out in the world

Mariya Nesvyetaylo, Portugal

Temenos (2025) is a four-rug epic: a hero’s journey depicting four stages of the alchemic transformation of one’s soul. It is a visual remix of four original paintings on the theme of temenos, a concept that goes back to the idea of a defined and sacred space where external forces are kept at bay, allowing for introspection and meditation. The pieces were exhibited at Branda gallery in Porto. The finissage was celebrated with a procession: the rugs were carried by a crowd through the streets of Porto, with music and singing, to a party at Lovers & Lollypops, where they formed the backdrop to the dancing.

Instagram: @albarda_besta. Website: nesvyetaylo.net

Paolo, Italy

Paolo calls his own tufting “peculiar”, and we mean it as a compliment when we agree. He tufts small elements that become part of his oil paintings, and builds site-specific installations: long pile flower heads on stitched fabric stems that climb across a painted wall or over a railing in a frescoed stone interior. Tufting as one material among many.

Instagram: @paolovitalepol

Étienne Frouin, France

90 THORIUM is a work in progress of 200 x 200 cm, photographed still on the frame. Four quadrants of circles and squares, two arrows cutting across them, and black shadows behind the shapes that give the surface depth, all on a pink ground. At this size every line has to hold, and it does.

Website: etiennefrouin.com

Camille Tournereau, France

Two modular masks, each built up from separate tufted shapes in blues, greens, lilac, ochre and red, with narrow slits for eyes. Camille photographed them in four different arrangements, and every one reads as a new face: horns become a jaw, a crown becomes a beard.

Instagram: @rugu3ux

Fossils, forests and sea life

Basia Herkt, United Kingdom

Basia made this dinosaur fossil rug for her son, and it was her first time working with high pile. The white skeleton lies in carved layers of brown and tan like a real excavation, surrounded by dark green mounds that read as moss. The different pile heights do the storytelling.

Instagram: @basiaherkt

Tine Raaholt Jensen, Denmark

A girl in blues and greys holding a red squirrel, a brown bear at her shoulder, and a forest lit by glowing yellow dots. The rug is a tufted version of the painting ‘Stifindere 2’ (Danish for ‘pathfinders’) by artist Anne Juul Christophersen, who gave her permission for both the rug and this feature. Tine made it for a community centre, and builds the shading out of many small blocks of colour, which makes the piece read more like a painting than a rug.

Original painting: ‘Stifindere 2’ by Anne Juul Christophersen.
Tufted by: @raaholtstuft

Reinoud, Netherlands

A red-eyed tree frog, tropical leaves and the words Costa Rica growing out of the foliage. Reinoud let the outline of the rug follow the design instead of squaring it off, which suits the subject.

Françoise, Belgium

A whole sea-life series. A tin of sardines complete with pull tab, a pink lobster on orange that serves as a stool cover, a seagull, a whale blowing hearts, a red fish for the wall and a seaweed pattern. Six small pieces that clearly belong together.

Instagram: @francoisedauchot

Faces, hands and fan favourites

İpek, Spain

İpek picked tufting back up after a year away. Her recent pieces, including a tufted mirror frame and an abstract rug, share the same bold colour style.

Instagram: @sunshine_tufting

Ainara Solís, Spain

Ainara is making her first rugs! Her hand piece, in earthy reds, ochre, black and cream stripes, is as neat on the back as on the front.

Instagram: @ainsolrugs. TikTok: @ainsol.rugs

Nico, Germany

Nico and co sent two fan tributes: Stitch and Angel cheek to cheek inside a black-edged heart, and a Creeper face from Minecraft in bright green and black squares. They also photographed the heart rug on the frame with only the black outlines tufted, which shows nicely how a piece like this begins.

Want to be in the next edition?

Send your photos to support@tuftingeurope.com, or simply reply to any of our emails. Tell us your Instagram handle if you would like to be tagged. If you would prefer not to be, we will mention your first name and country. Finished or still on the frame, first rug or fiftieth, made with our yarn or someone else’s: all welcome.

The next edition follows in October.

Fan-made pieces shown in this post are personal, non-commercial projects by their makers. They are not affiliated with or endorsed by the respective rights holders.