‘Beauty in Disruption and Imperfection’ – The Final Collection Sillitoe’s collection of disrupted knit samples was inspired by Japanese Kintsugi, the art of highlighting the repairs in cracked ceramics and appreciating the beauty in imperfection. Using Shima Seiki technology, many of her fabrics are reversible and include finishings enabling user creative control. Each has an interactive QR code label, providing key information for the user. Her work was awarded the Company Award from the Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters and she was delighted to reach the final of the Shima Seiki (Europe) Student Competition and the worldwide Loro Piana Knit Design Award 2024.

‘The Etiquette of Disruption’ Part of her collection ‘Breaking Traditions’, this piece introduces Kintsugi to the English ritual of tea drinking. Japanese Kintsugi is the art of repairing and reusing broken treasures, emphasising the mend and appreciating the beauty in imperfection. Sillitoe displays her knit-repaired saucers and teacups on porcelain hands, alongside her perfectly imperfect resin teapot, encasing porcelain knit fragments.

‘The Erosion Jumper’ Motivated by the effects of climate change, Sillitoe’s Erosion Jumper visualises the short, medium and long term levels of erosion, predicted along the Norfolk coastline. She uses naturally dyed yarns from indigenous Norfolk Horn sheep, and emphasises the predicted destruction by the base of the jumper ‘eroding’ after the first wash, due to a hidden, dissolvable yarn in the waistband. Sillitoe was awarded a bursary from the Society of Dyers and Colourists for this work and The Erosion Jumper is currently shortlisted in The Bradford Textile Society Awards 2024.