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!

Ohio flower garden

I’ve made another quilt as part of my quilting ‘stretch’ project using the block from Sherri at A Quilting Life’s mystery block a month. As I said then I don’t know if I’ll manage to make a quilt a month, but I won’t really know unless I try…

And I really enjoyed making this one.

This month I’m sharing my twelfth charity quilt and my new pile is now growing, since the first nine have now been donated to the Mansfield Coordinator of Project Linus UK.

My twelfth charity quilt

This month I decided to embrace the pinks and everything floral - after a couple of months avoiding pink, it felt good to let the pink roll! The Ohio Star block looked similar but different to one I’d completed earlier in this challenge, and when I looked back it was the friendly bee quilt it reminded me of.

I think all of these fabrics have made appearances in previous charity quilts and as you can see - it was destined to be full of florals, with lots of pink.

Making the central block

The Ohio Star block requires lots of squares cut into triangles and then sewn back together again, and despite it sounding (and looking) complicated it came together relatively quickly - and the individual stages looked pretty on my cutting board too.

Adding borders

I randomly laid the blocks out after adding the first log cabin border and really liked the position of the darker burgundy fabric, and so that became the layout I was working too, although it meant I needed to make some adjustments when adding a final border so that it remained balanced to the eye.

As soon as I saw the layout above, and especially the daisy which had placed itself quite unintentionally right in the centre of the quilt, that was the layout for me. I’d love to say it was planned this way, but it wasn’t!

It’s a really effective central block and one that I enjoyed making, so I can see more Ohio stars in my future. And with all these floral patterns, it really did remind me of a flower garden so this month finding a name was easy.

That’s twelve, but that isn’t it!

You may be thinking that now that’s the twelfth charity quilt, that’s my stretch project finished for the year. You’d be wrong - this is only the October edition of the Mystery Block quilt I’m making, so I’ve a further two quilts to go before I complete this challenge. It does mean that I’ll be making fourteen charity quilts in total but the first two that I shared were not part of the mystery block challenge. I always knew this would hopefully be the case, but I also knew that it’d give me a two month leeway if I needed it!

I have the November block and that’s currently doing its best to intimidate me a little, but I’m sure once I actually start it I’ll be fine…

You can see my other quilts I’ve made to donate to Project Linus - a charity whose mission is to provide love, a sense of security, warmth and comfort to children, who are sick, disabled, disadvantaged or distressed through the donation of new, homemade, washable quilts and blankets, including those that are part of this ‘stretch’ project in earlier posts. I’m aiming to publish an update on my progress in the last week of each month for the remainder of 2025.