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?

Repurposing old clothes as pouches

You know I like a pouch or two, and you’ve probably worked out that I don’t really like to throw things away if they still have another use in them. Today I’m sharing a couple of recent makes which combines both of those, and I’m very happy with the outcomes, and hopefully you’ll be persuaded to try projects with clothes you have loved too.

T-shirt to project bag

I really loved this Joules t-shirt and was happy to rediscover it in my wardrobe this summer, but really it was long past its best to wear - even for gardening, and so it was retired briefly. But I kept seeing it in the corner of my craft room, and I knew that if I didn’t cut it up soon then it might very well make its way back into my wardrobe.

So I had a look through the rest of my scraps, and in particular the old clothes that I’d already cut up before we moved and found the remnants of an old brightly coloured Phase 8 tunic which made the perfect pairing. Once again I loosely followed the instructions for the vinyl fronted pouches, but without the vinyl front and supersized.

I wanted to keep the embroidered Joules logo, and so cut the front of my new project bag from the back of the t-shirt. As I was sewing I realised that I also wanted to see snippets of the fabric I’d chosen for the lining, which if I’m honest looks better as this pouch rather than with the brown trousers I regularly used to pair it with for the office!

That meant I needed to add a strip of the lining fabric to the back section of the project bag to be, so that when I turned the surplus fabric over to encapsulate the rough edges it would be on display. Mission accomplished, and a few decorative splashes of zigzag additions to bolster some of the seams and I was done.

I told you the lining was bright, didn’t I? I’ve immediately put this project bag to use and its currently storing a selection of fabrics for a future make I’m contemplating - in fact it came with me to my patchwork group like this, and after lots of playing around testing out the placements of fabric it came home looking pretty much the same, but with the added ideas and advice from more experienced quilters than me.

I’ve a feeling this will be a small make for the new year unless I have a burst of inspiration, time and inclination!

Geometrical yo-yo storage

The second pouch is one that I’ve made this week to solve a specific problem (not really a problem, but it’s definitely solved). The material I’ve used was once a vest top, and unusually for me is more coordinating than contrasting, well on the outside anyway.

I wasn’t sure how this fabric would sew as it’s quite stretchy, so instead of using another t-shirt I had in mind I opted for this contrasting batik fabric which I’m sure I bought back at one of the larger shows I went to in London and was well due a sewing outing.

The problem it needed to solve was to provide a home for my giant yo-yo maker (well it’s the biggest one I have), which as you can see was struggling to fit into one of the pouches from the recent batch I’d made.

And it does - phew. The maths had me doubting myself at one or more points, but my reasoning for adjusting the original pattern instructions worked out ok.

I even added some of the rolled hem detailing to the bottom of the pouch as a reminder of its previous purpose. And I smiled to myself as I put the completed pouch back in its new home, wondering if my choices has been influenced at all by the wicker basket this time round…

But what’s even better is that I’ve still some of this fabric left, and I have the trimmings which are now very happily wound together and sitting in my waste weaving pile, no doubt they’ll show up in another project one day!

Repurposing a cycling top

Over the winter MOH spent some time creating a workout space in the garage, as let’s face it not many of us put our cars in there these days and there’s no longer a gym or such like on our doorstep. There’s still space for all our junk (though there’s getting less and less of that as we continue to sort through our moving boxes), the usual paraphernalia and my greenhouse station, so all’s good.

We’ve spent the summer using the space and it’s been really good to have - I already know we’ll appreciate it even more in the winter months - but it is kind of, well functional. There’s some finishing touches that I want to add and I’m hoping to get to more of those soon.

We’ve also finally had our large inbuilt wardrobes kitted out so we can make the most of the space we have (more on those another day!) and so we’ve been sorting through our clothes; some have headed to the charity shop and others are for sale on eBay and Vinted (with many more to list!) and some I’ve kept to reuse. One of MOH’s first cycling tops was in the reuse pile, along with one of his now holey Superdry t-shirts.

In our workout space we knew that storage was going to be key, and we’ve hooks of all shapes and sizes to add to the walls (when we decide where things need to go) but sometimes you just want to shove stuff out of sight don’t you? And away from the spiders (or as much as we can, anyway).

And so the idea for a drawstring bag was born.

Having looked for an easy tutorial on YouTube I set about creating the front and backs using the purple t-shirt as lining. I wanted to keep the cycling top details, so cut off the Altura logos from the parts I wasn’t using and supplemented these with the elastic waistband of some cycling shorts which were heading for the bin.

Rather than start by sewing the bag together, my first job was to piece the logos and elastic to add detail to the front and back of the bag, which I’d used the main body of the cycling top for. It was only then that I could actually make the bag, and it turned out pretty well.

THE FRONT, COMPLETE WITH THE CYCLING TOP ZIP IN ITS ORIGINAL PLACE

I kept it simple and kept the zip from the front of the cycling top, though at one point my sewing machine grumbled about that. The front has an additional logo (at right angles) and some of the elastic with poppers on the front, as well as the curved lower edge of the back, complete with the reflective strip.

The back, which is the back of the cycling top has another logo added across the back, and thinking ahead to spider-proof this (you can never be too careful) on this side the waist of the cycling shorts was used to seal the pockets.

AND THE BACK, THE THREE REAR POCKETS HAVE BEEN SEALED WITH THE ELASTIC TRIM

The yellow and white cord I’d kept from carrier bags - you know the duffle bag type - which were no longer used (and in fact had already been recycled long before we moved).

I’d planned to make myself a bag along the same lines, but was undecided about which of my netball kits to use. In the end I found my Adidas gym bag which I used to take to netball matches - I know this because it still had the eight safety pins pinned into in for pinning on those velcro bibs to non-velcro-ed tops - something I’d completely forgotten about!

So I’m reusing this one as a starting point, though I’ve a feeling that turning old sports kit into drawstring bags could become a bit of thing - and I’m not sad about that at all!