This week, the indefatigable, multi-skilled Kaffe Fassett (b.1937) who revolutionised the dull, grey world - as it appeared to him, a displaced Californian - of British knitting, quilting and stitching with his passion for colour and pattern, his inspirational books, and his advice to just pick up your needles and get going. There is an exhibition of his work at the Fashion + Textile Museum at the moment, but his signature explosions of colourful textiles are not confined to galleries: above is Kaffe in his home studio.  

Lubna Chowdhary (b.1970) is a leading ceramic artist who, by means of repeated firings, achieves exquisite, richly coloured and textured tiles which she brings together in beautiful patterns and arrangements. The Lantern Tower (2007), her largest public artwork, is to be found at a major transport interchange in Slough. It is easily accessible, making it possible to examine the colours and textures closely, and to yield to the temptation to touch them. 

Any survey of tiles as public art, no matter how brief, should mention the vast number of huge, beautiful schemes in Portugal, many of which have been designed by women. An incredible amount of exterior surface area in Lisbon is covered with the work of Maria Keil (1914-2012); her designs appear in ten of the first metro stations in Lisbon (work undertaken 1955-1972) including Anjos station (1966, above). She made her name as the first Portuguese artist to give azulejos (tiles) a modern look, and played a major role in the development of the contemporary Portugese cultural life. This Azulejo route in Lisbon sounds marvellous. 

Christina Sheppard (b.1932) is a freelance pottery designer and decorator who makes beautiful individual tiles and is also responsible for the mural of Shakespeare's Stratford made in 1981 for the new Shakespeare Birthplace Trust's Visitors' Centre. She writes, "I set out to show the town in Shakespeare's time in all its bustling activity...each tile shows an activity such as brewing, or rat-catching, Lords and Ladies walking together, as well as ordinary everyday tasks. I wanted the mural to amuse, invite & inform and to show how much poetry can be found in the most ordinary of things."

In 1960, Dorothy Annan (1908-83) was commissioned by the Ministry of Works to create a mural to line the front of a building on Farringdon Street which housed London's largest telephone exchange. Her mural, listed in 2011, was moved in 2013 to the Cromwell High Walk in the Barbican where the scale of the work and the details of the panels on telecommunications themes (pylons, generators, telegraph poles etc) can be appreciated in full and at leisure.  

The recent re-openings of Leighton House and the De Morgan Museum have reignited interest in tiles. This week we have posts on five artists, all women, who have created fine public art with tiles. Peggy Angus (1904-93) used basic tools eg potatoes and lining paper to design predominantly abstract tiles which were used in foyers, stairwells and entrances of schools to great effect. They can still be seen in many locations, including the Lansbury Lawrence Primary School (1951), a Festival of Britain showpiece school.

Like many great painters and colourists such as Matisse and Bonnard, Winifred Nicholson often painted subjects framed by windows, but she focused on flowers and plants on windowsills or small tables, as in Still Life by a Window (c1927, Brighton and Hove Museums). A grouping like this would brighten the dullest January day.