You can call it AYFP for short.
AYFP is edited and designed by Emma Crabtree,
Katie J Barlow and Jess Freeman-Attwood.
You can call it AYFP for short.
AYFP is edited and designed by Emma Crabtree,
Katie J Barlow and Jess Freeman-Attwood.
Submissions for AYFP (A Yarn & Fibre Publication) Issue 3 are now open!
Deadline: Wednesday 8th April 2026
Please read the guidance below carefully, then submit your work here.
The Brief
Issue 3 gathers its theme from the folds.
Folds provide sculptural potential, creating an inside and outside, edges and frays and the illusion of a seamless material. This double-surface centres both its dual meanings and the unseen dimensions of textile practices. Folding fosters a hopeful and social framework – gathering, enveloping and enfolding embrace communality. The folded line delineates the private and the public. Across fabric and paper, folded and nomadic vessels such as pouches and envelopes archive intimacy. Banners and quilts made at home and unfurled in public highlight unfolding as an act of protest and care. To fold also speaks to ideas of failure and collapse – undoing, unmaking and giving up. It can also be the emergence of something new.
Across patchworking and clothesmaking, the back and interior of these works are made up of seams – fabric sewn together and then pressed to make tidy folds. The complexities of the hidden surface of textiles, its neatness or messiness, its seamlessness or bunched up fabric, knots, tangles and coverups can tell us more about the maker(s) than its homogenised exterior. Repetitive techniques such as smocking, pleating, ruffles and ruches externalise skilled work through laborious flourish. Repeated gestures speak to the social world and invisible labour of the domestic sphere, interwoven with histories of textile practices as “women’s work”: ironing, chores and housework and the enduring image of a folded garment.
Folding also points to the paper blueprints and counterparts that enable the construction of textiles such as patterns, guides and manuals. Like textiles, books are subject to folds and creasing at the hands of the user, as markers of time, progress and delays. The book is bodily in its shared language with textiles – bound, stitched, sometimes dressed in a dust jacket.
In Issue 3 of AYFP, we invite contributors to explore the theme of folding through creative and expansive interpretation. Ideas might include but are not limited to:
- Folding techniques and artefacts: smocking/pleating
- Folding as surface: inside/outside, edges/frays, presence/absence, hiding/revealing
- Folding as repetitive: labour, loops, legacies and explorations of “women’s work”
- Folding as social: fostering collaboration, enfolding communities
- Folding as ‘failure’: unfinished, forgotten, abandoned or non-linear projects
- Folding as paper counterparts: patterns, guides, manuals, artist books
- Folding as nomadic: portable, storage, archives, envelopes, pouches
Format
AYFP is a DIY magazine dedicated to textiles and craft. Past issues of AYFP will give you a sense of the kinds of work we publish, from longer-form essays and written research pieces, to visual work/projects, photo-essays, how-tos and patterns.
We welcome work-in-progress as well as more fleshed-out pieces, as we invite an involved editorial process.
Please submit written work as .docx or .pdf, and image files as high-res (min 300dpi) JPEGs, PDFs or TIFFs, with captions as the filename. Though previous issues have been printed in two-colour risograph, any colour images should be supplied in their original form.
Process
After the deadline, we will review all submissions thoroughly and create a shortlist. You will be informed as to whether your work will be included in Issue 3 by mid-May. If your application is successful, we will be in touch to discuss next editorial steps, any comments we have, and a final deadline for completion of the piece.
All contributors will receive a copy of the issue and all work will be fully credited. As a DIY and unfunded project, AYFP is unfortunately unable to pay all contributors for their work. However, we are able to compensate for feature pieces at a 2000+ word-count or 4+ double-page spreads for visual work with a small payment of £50. Feature pieces will be confirmed during the editorial process.
We look forward to looking over your submission!