Jilli is best known for her Millennium Kilt series which was exhibited in Andrew Bolton’s ‘Men in Skirts’ exhibition at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London. This series was the inspiration behind her first appearance on a global stage as Director of Costume for The Flag Handover Ceremony at the 2010 Commonwealth Games, Delhi. She designed contemporary embroidered red tartan outfits for 350 cast members, two of whom wore bespoke Jilli Blackwood outfits, based upon regimental ceremonial dress, and which included Millennium Kilts.

In 2014, she was commissioned to dress Team Scotland athletes for the Opening Ceremony of the Commonwealth Games held in Glasgow, producing outfits and a unique woven tartan designed to capture the intensity and spirit of Team Scotland.

At the same time, Jilli was commissioned by the World Anti Doping Agency to design a bespoke, printed tartan using their corporate colours to highlight their presence at the Athletes’ Village during the 2014 Games. This branding was rolled out across numerous small gifts and mementos to commemorate individuals’ involvement at the Games and to educate the athletes about doping.

Jilli’s designs have helped to communicate a number of strong messages and have left a lasting impact on those who have encountered them, including a major project for Heathrow Airport in 2015 celebrating the impact of Scottish inventors on aviation.

The application of Jilli’s designs is universal, with the luxury market drawn to her striking artwork. A textile hangs in the Fairmont Hotel in St Andrews, Scotland, and in 2022, to add to their existing collection of Jilli’s work, Firmdale Hotels bought an embroidered tryptic entitled “Caithness” for their new hotel in Warren Street, New York City.

Since 2020, an exciting new body of work has been developed; it is a blend of Jilli’s ’slash and show’ technique with her trademark use of colour, this time in oil paint, to transform the canvas into highly textural paintings. Her painting style, like her textiles, is based around the abstract, creating mood, emotion and atmosphere by pairing oil paint, stitch and texture, whilst drawing inspiration from the world outside as well as her inner world.

Jilli is a lively and engaging artist who is highly sought after as a guest lecturer and speaker in the United Kingdom and abroad. Notable engagements include: The Glasgow School of Art; Friends of the Victoria & Albert Museum (V&A), London; the applied art fair SOFA in Chicago, USA; the Philadelphia Museum of Art (PMA) Craft Show, USA and Kuwait’s National Gallery. In February 2016, she was the invited guest artist at the “Design Outside the Lines” Retreat in Montecito, California. In November 2024, the Caledonian Club in Belgravia, London is hosting the debut solo exhibition of Jilli’s new collection of paintings alongside a small selection of her textile art.

In addition, Jilli offers creative workshops on a number of themes including, but not limited to: ‘Fibre Bead Making’, ‘The Remarkable Thread’, ‘Recycling and Reimagining’ and ‘Colour’.

Jilli’s work has been featured in many magazines including: Vogue, Elle Decoration, Selvedge Magazine, House and Garden, Homes and Gardens, Craft Arts International and the Embroiderers’ Guild “embroidery” magazine, among other mainstream media titles. She has appeared on TV on the BBC, STV and BBC Radio, talking about her work and critiquing that of others.