Nussara Tiengkate is a textile historian, weaver, and designer. She graduated from the Faculty of Social Administration at Thammasat University and received an honorary master of textile design from Rajamangala University of Technology. She began her career in the 1980s as a social worker in Mae Cham, Chiang Mai where she had fallen in love with the local community of hand-weaving craftpeople. With the true love and passion for the art of weaving as well as for the people with whom she worked, she decided to settle there with them where she subsequently spent more than two decades learning and developing with them the traditional "Lanna" (a local colloquial word for the northern Thailand) weaving styles. Among them are “Teen Jok," a pattern of traditional Lanna skirt worn by women only to an important event and ritual ceremony, which is particularly special to the Mae Chem style. The most distinguished feature of this weaving style lies in the detailed ending pattern at the bottom end of the skirt.
Inspired by the extraordinary skills passed on from one generation to the other of the weavers in the village, Nussara was inspired to revitalize this art with her knowledge of design in creating modern weaving patterns. For instance, where local weavers painstakingly blended the continuity of the pattern, Nussara has created a pattern of rhythmic spaces in her design. This technique of changing the structure of the pattern has motivated others to create many new designs and ideas. In 2000, she opened her shop “Nussara” in Wat Kate area as a showcase of these new hand-woven textiles.