Textured embroidery and plastic bags by Emily Cox

By now I’m sure you’ve realised that I enjoy seeing the quilts, galleries and special exhibitions at the craft shows I go to as much as seeing what the suppliers have to tempt me with, and it was no different at the Harrogate Knit & Stitch Show in November.

One of my personal favourites of the whole show was the hall hosted by the Embroidery Guild which we almost didn’t find - it was at the far end of the hall we entered, though others were arriving through that door and were immediately immersed into it. I loved that in this part of the show there was an area to showcase recent graduates work, and in my first few posts I’m going to focus on these.

Let’s start off with a look at Emily Cox’s stand, and if you know me then you know I do like a Waitrose shop, so I was curious to see if that coat really was made from Waitrose bags - and spoiler it was, but more on that later.

EMILY COX, KNIT & STITCH SHOW HARROGATE 2025

Emily says that ‘embroidery is central to her practice’ and allows her to ‘form an intimate relationship with her work, each stitch elevating the emotional and conceptual connection behind the pieces’.

Nature is a recurring theme as Emily admits she is ‘fascinated by the patterns, colours and textures that surround us, that often go unnoticed’ - I could have spent a lot more time looking at all of these pieces in much more detail.

BREATH BETWEEN THREADS, EMILY COX, KNIT & STITCH SHOW HARROGATE 2025

If you’re wondering how the ‘Breath Between Threads’ piece is created the label beneath it reads ‘Domestic freehand machine embroidery on fabric, with cut-outs to create depth and shadow between the leaves’ - and isn’t it gorgeous?

EMILY COX, KNIT & STITCH SHOW HARROGATE 2025

I love the texture and the colour detail in all of the pieces above, though in the image above I think the one with the pink background, which reminds me of a gloriously rich coleus is my favourite.

BLOOM AGAINST WASTE - EMILY COX, KNIT & STITCH SHOW HARROGATE 2025

And then I saw the embroidery on plastic hanging on the back wall - it’s a collage of plastic bags with a freehand machine embroidered tulip stitched on which ‘merges beauty with the traces of consumption’.

And that Waitrose plastic bag coat? Here’s a closer look at it.

REGROWTH IN PLASTIC - EMILY COX, KNIT & STITCH SHOW HARROGATE 2025

It’s a fantastic way to reuse reusable plastic bags to make a statement, as well as a beautifully tailored item of clothing - yes clothing, as Emily was due to model this on the Knit & Stitch Catwalk during the show, sadly not on the day we were there.

But it’s totally a plastic mac with a difference isn’t it?

Sustainable quilts at the Festival of Quilts

This was a category I was keen to explore once I spotted it existed. You’ll know I’m trying to use as much of my stash as possible and am reusing old clothes in at least some of the quilts and pouches I’m making, so it was a category after my own heart. Having already seen some of the fantastic quilts on show I was keen to see, and be wowed, by the creativeness of these quilt makers, and I wasn’t disappointed.

To class as sustainable for the Festival of Quilts the quilt needed to have been made with ‘minimal negative impact on the environment’ with at least 75% of the fabric used being repurposed, and the remaining 25% would ideally be organic fabrics or taken from their stash, and ‘the maker should use biodegradable or recycled materials wherever possible, or use materials from sustainable and natural sources’.

And none of these criteria meant the quilts didn’t have the wow factor, in fact they do a brilliant job of showing what can be done with repurposed materials.

Prepare to be wowed

I did warn you, it’s stunning isn’t it? I am rather partial to a Cathedral Window quilt and I’ve long had an idea that I would make one in denim, but I think making one that looks good would be tricky enough so I’m not sure I need to add in the complexity and thickness of denim. I downgraded my ambition and that’s how I landed with my ‘jeans and pyjamas’ quilt on my 2025 list, there’s still some curves and some denim but hopefully in my doable category, although as I write this at the beginning of December I’ve yet to start this one - so maybe it’s optimistic to think this will make it this year, but who knows?!

ONE OFF THE BUCKET LIST, VICTORIA MILLER

I love the repeating circle pattern, and the uniformity of the white and almost taupe colour in the detailing of the circles, but most of all I love the colour and how much it doesn’t look like it’s made from repurposed materials! I bet those colourful centres hold all sorts of memories, and that’s what really does it for me especially when using old clothes that have been much loved.

This second quilt I’m sharing is a design I need to remember, as I have a growing pile of 2.5” strips from the quilts I’m making. With clever colour placement this quilt proves that you can use those strips effectively - note made!

ÅLAND, LINNÉA EHN

SHIRTSANDO, VICKY HAWKINS

The quilt above looks to have used old shirts in a really effective way, but again with a fairly simple pattern. I was drawn to this one by the circles in the quilting, and I suspect this is the quilt that influenced me to try something similar with my Half the Scraps quilt, but way less successfully!

Looking at this again now it looks as if those circles have been hand quilted, and I suspect that may be the way to go if I see circles in my quilting future. Those smaller fabric circles look to be appliqued on, which is another technique I’m trying in my latest quilt.

This next quilt also blew me away, I love a colour graduating quilt - but this one was huge and double sided. It was on display so you could view both sides, and while I’m sure I took a photo of the other side, I can’t find it for the life of me - I’m sure though it was equally as impressive.

ECLECTIC BECKY, ELIZABETH BARKER

But so many small squares, and so many seams to match up - but definitely a wow, wow, wow from me.

The final quilt that I’m sharing in this category (and there were more than I can include in this post) is this denim masterpiece with an equally clever title. The second picture shows the detail of the quilt, and the rivets, buttons, button holes and zipper sections used so effectively.

JUDGES’ CHOICE - RIVETING RESTRICTIONS - FROM WASTE TO WONDER, MARJA MATIISEN

RIVETING RESTRICTIONS - FROM WASTE TO WONDER, MARJA MATIISEN

It rightly deserved its Judges’ Choice label which admired the mind boggling texture, and how the madness is beautifully tamed by the dark central circle. It also called the quilt ‘Genius!’ and I have to agree, I think this was easily one of my favourite quilts at the show - and I thought I loved the Cathedral Windows quilt at the top of this post, this one I loved twice as much.

If you enjoyed this post from my visit to the Festival of Quilts 2025 then please do check out my other posts from the show. Even though my mind was blown by the sheer volume of quilts on display, I’m pretty sure I’ll be going again!

Nottinghamshire's tropical garden

Yes, you read that right. A while back I spotted Honeytrees tropical garden in a local Facebook group, and my interest was piqued. It’s close to us, a little over ten miles away and never in my wildest dreams did I imagine anything quite so lush, or tropical so close by. I also spotted that they planned to open every weekend in August as part of the National Garden Scheme. As MOH has long had a hankering for including a banana tree in the plans for our garden it made sense to go along - we managed to get there on the last day of August, and their last day of opening for the year - phew.

It was amazing. Packed full of plants, and then some more on top of that.

And on this chilly December day I thought I could do with a burst of tropical colour. What I didn’t really expect to see though was some roses, but I did.

The garden was packed full of plants and structures including a viewing platform - and while it was a relatively large plot it wasn’t overly huge. It just goes to show that you really can transform spaces with some thought, and a lot of passion.

For MOH it’s the colour of the cannas, and the scale of the banana plants that appeal to him. For me it’s the multicoloured foliage and less than usual shapes.

And as we went around the garden, each turn wowed us more. I’m not about to turn my plot into a tropical garden - I’ve seen how much work goes into this garden - but I would like to incorporate some of the plants we saw when we visited.

Maybe not a monkey tree though…

With so many tropical plants and not so tropical winters, many of the plants needed to be sheltered at this time of year. There were a lot of pots, but also a lot of plants already in hot houses, which were already pretty hot back in August.

The work I mentioned before included lots of propagation, and I mean lots!

Some of the plants were for sale, and we were sorely tempted. But in the end we left empty handed but with a bit more knowledge about caring for the plants, and knowing that we’d be back again to visit and at some point likely to be ready to make a purchase too, but not until we’ve got somewhere to overwinter it properly to give it the best chance of surviving, and that could be a little while yet - no doubt much to MOH’s frustration.