Jo Avery's bright and brilliant improv quilts

November 11, 2025

In addition to the many, many quilts on display at the Festival of Quilts there’s also galleries dotted around the exhibition space, and one of my favourites was Jo Avery’s Textile Gallery. I love her brightly coloured bold quilts and it was great to see them up close and first hand.

The gallery was in celebration of Jo’s new book - Journey to the Centre of a Quilter in which she shares her inspiration and the importance of play. I don’t have the book, but it’s definitely a contender for my Christmas List - though I’m under no illusion that my quilts would ever be as fabulous as these, though I think they’d have their own level of fabulousness!

JO AVERY’S TEXTILE GALLERY, FESTIVAL OF QUILTS 2025

Even in these smaller spaces the walls were loaded with quilts, and it was hard to know where to look, or where to start but my feet led me to those that most appealed to me, funny how that happens when our brains aren’t sure isn’t it?

What caught my eye about the quilt above is the detail in the quilting, which stands out with the light thread on the dark background. And then looking at the main motif, and seeing the amount of detail there too. Totally mind blown.

I loved the improv quilt below, and then loved it even more when I saw it was called Jukebox.

JUKEBOX, JO AVERY’S TEXTILE GALLERY, FESTIVAL OF QUILTS 2025

But again the detail is mind blowing, and the size of this one - it’s 142cm by 217cm - and actually reminds me of a jukebox we had in our childhood home, which was I’m sure, equally as big.

What Jo’s quilts made me realise was how simple shapes repeated can be so effective, and look anything but simple as the quilts above and below both demonstrate.

And when those shapes are repeated and mixed with other shapes such as the houses or the wavy landscapes below, they become something truly fantastic.

POPLARS, JO AVERY’S TEXTILE GALLERY, FESTIVAL OF QUILTS 2025

This one brought me straight back to that time I tried quilting in a circle, which was one of the most stressful quilting sessions I’ve had so far, but this one makes me want to try again. Though on a much smaller scale!

What I also liked is how Jo’s style of quilting also works for flower shapes, and this Dream Flower quilt below is stunning in its boldness - I’d say simplicity, but there is nothing simple about the detail here, as each petal contains a different improv pieced or organic applique pattern.

DREAM FLOWER, JO AVERY’S TEXTILE GALLERY, FESTIVAL OF QUILTS 2025

The last quilt I’m sharing here today is this Giant Trilobite (which are extinct marine arthropods - I just had to Google it) and once again it features the bright colours, the circles and more improv pieced and needle-turn applique patterned segments.

GIANT TRILOBITE, JO AVERY’S TEXTILE GALLERY, FESTIVAL OF QUILTS 2025

Aren’t they all amazing?

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!

Gargano's gnarly olive trees

November 7, 2025

It was the day that we headed back down to the coast that we saw the most amazing olive trees on the sides of the road, and as we walked through olive groves. If you’d asked me beforehand I’d probably say that one olive tree is pretty much like any other, but I’d be wrong - and I was surrounded by the evidence on that walk! Of course there were many that looked similar but there were also many, and I’m only sharing a few here, that were the most gnarliest and stubborn trees I’ve ever seen.

I could have snapped so many more, but we as had a hotel to get find that was deemed to be the priority!

A twisted trunk on an old and tall olive tree growing on the side of the road

Once we started to notice the gnarly trunks of the olive trees, that became our challenge to spur us on as the temperature’s got warmer and we got tired-er, sort of like a grown up version of I-spy as it were.

old split olive tree trunks behind railings - for whose safety?

Some where growing right up against the boundaries, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they’d really been grown like that from the off or if there was some kind of boundary change which caused this. It amused me that they were so close to the railings, and I couldn’t help but wonder if that was for our safety, or theirs.

The same trees behind railings - showing more clearly how one was stronger to survive

Others had almost completely hollow trunks, which looked if they could easily hide a human - we didn’t try.

A large olive tree trunk - which is almost hollow

Others had walls build around them.

Another old olive tree - I think the wall was built around it

And more than one combined a number of the things I’ve been pointing out here.

Another wall built around a split trunk of an olive tree - this time with small stones in the hollow trunk

Some even appearing to have grown ‘legs’.

A twisted gnarly olive tree growing in a wall, this one has two roots (like legs) hanging onto the verge

For all the weird and wacky shaped olive trees, there were many more more uniform, and I guess younger trees to see, which made spotting the gnarly ones a real privilege.

More usual looking olive trees - growing in lines in one of the olive groves our walk took us through

Whatever their shape, whatever their size they truly are amazing aren’t they?

Post Comment Love 7 - 9 November

November 7, 2025

Hello there, and welcome to this week’s #PoCoLo - a relaxed, friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed, and if you see older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

I’m sharing another photo from our recent trip away for this week’s post. This one was taken in the barn at Great Dixter where it was a joy to see so many seed heads drying. In fact the whole garden was fantastic, as was the house, but it was the garden that really shone for me. Maybe that was because it was always going to, or because it was the day after the rain and winds and nature was doing its best to put on a brave face, who knows. But the garden, for me, was magnificent because it wasn’t too manicured, and had more of a ‘lived in’ and 'used’ feel to it if you know what I mean.

Have a great week.

Seed heads drying on a beam in a wooden barn at Great Dixter