The Shuffreys were invited in 1985 to show their rugs and to demonstrate Navajo weaving at the Hatfield Living Crafts Exhibition, an annual four-day craft fair held at the historic 16th Century Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, where Queen Elizabeth I spent part of her childhood. Craftspeople from all over England showcase every imaginable craft. To augment their own display, the Shuffreys wrote to the offices of the Navajo Nation asking for some posters and other visual materials that would offer visitors more insights into Navajo culture. They were more than a little surprised when they received word that the Navajo Arts & Crafts Enterprise planned to send a delegation of six Navajo people, including well known rug weaver Mae Jim, silversmith Howard Begay, and the reigning Miss Navajo Nation, Lorraine Lewis, along with a large inventory of Navajo jewelry and rugs for sale.

The resulting display was one of the most heavily visited at the fair that year. Several of the Navajos were filmed by a local television station, and school children especially were thrilled to see real Native Americans. The Shuffreys hosted two dinners for their Navajo visitors at their home, and thereafter, always visited them on subsequent visits to the Southwest. They forged a particularly strong friendship with Mae Jim. In 1998 and 2000, the Shuffreys were again invited to Hatfield, by which time the number of rugs they had woven had dramatically increased.

While working on one rug, both Margaret and Tony usually contemplated what style to weave next, and as often as not, it turned out to be more complex than the previous one. Tony generally preferred to weave smaller, tapestry quality rugs, while Margaret opted for a wider variety of regional style rugs of all sizes. Tony also undertook to reproduce several historic pieces that he had actually seen in museums or in books. These included 1st and 3rd-phase chief's blankets, so named because they were traded great distances in the last half of the 1800s and were often worn by the chiefs of other tribes as symbols of their status. A very complex eye-dazzler rug, reproduced by Tony in 1996, is perhaps the ultimate test of a weaver's patience and sense of precision.

Each time they visited the Southwest, the Shuffreys renewed old friendships and forged new ones with traders, gallery owners and craft dealers, museum staff, and most especially, with individual Navajos. Many of these happened quite by accident or often through mutual acquaintances, such as their meeting Sallie Lippincott Wagner, who owned the Wide Ruins Trading Post in the 1940s, or Arch Gould, a noted collector of Navajo rugs from Grand Junction, Colorado. Gould later invited the Shuffreys to present one of their talks in 1989 during an inaugural exhibition of the Gould collection at the Western Colorado Center for the Arts. It was at that same exhibition where they met Jackson Clark, a former gallery owner from Durango, Colorado, who formed the Durango Collection, perhaps one of the most complete collections of historic Navajo weavings, now housed at Fort Lewis College in Durango.

A more tangible result of these growing friendships was easier access to the type of wool needed for weaving more rugs. Perhaps as early as their second visit and certainly on each subsequent one, the Shuffreys returned to England with quantities of Navajo wool yarn, especially finely spun Navajo warp yarn, whenever it was available. Early on, English yarns had proven unsatisfactory and their sources increasingly unreliable. By the late 1980s, the Shuffreys were getting much of their yarn from Burnham's Trading Post in Sanders, AZ, owned and operated by Bruce Burnham. He provided them with steady encouragement, as well as occasional gifts of additional wool shipped between their visits. Les Wilson at Two Grey Hills Trading Post in New Mexico was another frequent source of wool and encouragement. Two Grey Hills is known for the finest of all Navajo weaving, so it was especially gratifying when Wilson photographed the Shuffreys with their rugs and put their photos on the trading post bulletin board, alongside those of Navajo weavers whose rugs he purchased for resale. This was the ultimate seal of approval.

In addition to their series of illustrated talks and demonstrations at the Hatfield Living Craft Fair, the Shuffreys also demonstrated Navajo weaving at the American Museum in Bath. This museum's collection focuses exclusively on American material culture and includes a small collection of Navajo and Rio Grande textiles. During an exhibit of these in 1991, the Shuffreys were artists-in-residence for several days at the museum, adding much to visitors' understanding and appreciation of the textiles in the exhibit. In subsequent years, they were invited back to speak several times.