IT’S certainly an unusual request – but a Basingstoke art teacher is appealing for people to donate the fluff from their tumble dryer filters.

Julie Parker, a teacher at Cranbourne Business and Enterprise College, is making a patchwork quilt using the recycled material – but so far, she only has enough to make one square metre.

It is one of several unusual pieces of art that Ms Parker has challenged herself to make, having previously created a shirt using hair and a mattress from tumble dryer lint.

She said of her new project: “It’s based on the nostalgia and history of patchworks – you knew who the pieces of fabric had come from. My work is about human traces and the absent body.

“For example, I have done artwork before where I take marks left on the floor and turn them into drawings.

“I started working with dust and made a video using dust. I also made a mattress out of tumble dryer lint, and it’s got birth, death and life all in the mattress with traces of people.”

The teacher is trying to inspire students at the school in Wessex Close, by bringing a contemporary approach to art into the department.