Reshape your home: intricately carved marquetry is at the top of the interiors wish list right now

Marquetry — the age-old skill of making patterns out of slivers of glued-down wood — is getting a modern makeover through tech and experimentation.

"Traditional hand-cut marquetry is labour intensive, though widely practised with new colours and shapes," explains furniture maker Jason Heap, who runs the annual Celebration of Craftsmanship and Design, a show of bespoke furniture at Cheltenham's Thirlestaine Long Gallery.

"Now you also have laser-cut marquetry, where impressively accurate pieces are cut by a machine controlled by a computer file," adds Heap (info@jasonheapfurniture.com). Running from August 19 to 28, the show features 300 pieces by 70 British workshops (Tickets £6; celebrationofcraftsmanship.com).

Among those showing in Cheltenham is Wimbledon's Kevin Stamper. His patterns of multi-shaded squares for furniture and wall pieces progress from pixelated photos, transformed into meticulously hand-cut coloured squares. It took five years to perfect his secret technique for dyeing timbers.

"There were so many challenges — fading, shrinkage, splitting — but now I've got it taped." Literally, as strips of pattern are taped together, then pressed into place. At the show from Leeds will be Christine Meyer-Eaglestone, a trained fine artist who learned cabinet making. She also hand-cuts, but her work, with dynamic abstract shapes, evolves in the making itself. "It's a long process," she says. "I often work through the night."

Scooping an award at the New Designers show in N1 last month were marquetry-mad young Manchester duo, David Winter and Natasha Kurth. Their laser-cut marquetry is subtle and unusual, using just one colour for tight geometric patterns on table tops. Light reflecting off the grain makes an effect similar to a damask fabric.

In west London, Welsh designer Bethan Gray also takes a one-colour approach. But her cut pieces are audaciously bold, with colourful patterns that repeat and radiate on cupboard fronts and table tops. She's teamed up with Islamic artist Mohamad Reza Shamsian, whose workshop has 70 artisans in Oman. Gray has upsized the scale and added shimmering colour.

A turquoise sideboard has a scalloped motif taken from the battlements of an ancient Omani fort. Its ombré effect, with graded dyed veneers, mimics changing light as the sun rises. Table tops have hand-cut wedges of dyed veneer radiating from a central point, defined with brass overlays.

Hampshire's Charles Dedman, who is coming to the London Design Fair next month, is expanding his Zapotec range on to cupboards, trays and picture frames, with a tight geometric marquetry pattern based on Mexican folk art. Trained in design at Kingston University, followed by furniture making at Chichester College, Dedman calls his work "craft-tech", referring to its complex mix of advanced software and intricate handwork.

A cabinet maker in the Chelsea workshop of Simon Orrell has perfected the technique of creating marquetry with straw. Orrell has added it to an ecletic bag of finishing tricks for fine furniture that includes shagreen, shell and parch-ment. The dyed straw, which must be colour graded, split and hammered, comes from France. The end result pulsates with colour as silky strands catch the light. "It's hard to do," says Orrell. "This finish is truly handmade." Traditional patterns have exploding sunbursts, but Orrell has devised contemporary geometric motifs.

​Woolwich cabinet maker Jan Hendzel uses salvaged wood for beautiful, bespoke furniture and kitchens, where discs, grooves and waves enhance reused Douglas fir, hemlock, spruce and English-grown ash, flaunting imperfections of grain. These pieces made it to the stringently vetted summer Masterpiece London art fair at the Royal Hospital Chelsea, where David Linley, London leader of luxury marquetry, also introduced his laser-cut Cassiopeia Screen, interpreting a nude portrait, Scarlett (1999), by painter Jonathan Yeo. Linley's love of marquetry dates back to his training in woodwork from the age of 16 at John Makepeace's Parnham College. "I was one of the first to use colour," he said.

Since founding the company Linley in 1985, he has assembled a formidable library of veneers. More than 40 types in the screen include elm, London plane, apple, cherry, eucalyptus, sycamore and quilted maple.