In 2016, the Royal Horticultural Society invited Elizabeth Bradley to exhibit at The Chelsea Flower Show in London – an honor given to few non-horticultural companies. The Elizabeth Bradley team continues to be invited back each year to showcase beautiful botanical needlepoint kits. Head designer, Vernon Kirk, along with his team spend months creating the perfect booth design that reflects the company’s ethos. 2016 Booth 2017 Booth 2018 Booth 2019 Booth 2021 Booth 2022 Booth 2023 Booth Following the success of the first show, Head designer, Vernon Kirk had an idea to create a series of designs for Kirk & Bradley based on the show gardens. Vernon studies the garden elements, colours, and architectural details to recreate the garden into a unique needlepoint kit. The first Chelsea Flower Show design marked a new needlepoint kit collaboration between Elizabeth Bradley and Kirk & Bradley. The Chelsea Eccentric Garden was the first exclusive design to the Kirk & Bradley range. Directly inspired by the Harrods Eccentrics Garden from the 2016 Chelsea Flower Show, this design incorporates many separate motifs to create a wonderfully modern tapestry. The Chelsea Cutting Garden was the second addition to the Kirk & Bradley range. This kit captures the mood of Chelsea’s informal Colour Cutting Garden. This design showcases gorgeous colours in a delightful patchwork of flowerbeds. We introduced The Chelsea Yorkshire Garden which inspired by the “People’s Choice” winner at the 2018 show. The Yorkshire Garden captures a natural northern England scene, with a traditional dry stone cottage, meadow flowers, a bubbling brook, a rustic vegetable garden and gentle woodland. Beautiful shades of purples, mauves, blues, whites, and yellow make this piece a romantic journey into the Yorkshire landscape. Another award winner, The Garden Sanctuary was designed to encompass the feel of the 2019 Donkey Sanctuary Garden. An area for the donkeys to shelter is the focal point with a dripping bucket placed above the well and arid plantings all around. With the postponement of the 2020 show, we continued the tradition of the garden-inspired kits featuring the Norfolk family garden of our lead designer, Vernon Kirk. The Chelsea Artist's Garden combines vignettes of flowering perennials, fruits, and vegetables to create a true cottage garden of imperfect beauty. The Chelsea Autumn Garden highlights plants from the first-ever September Chelsea Flower Show. An autumnal palette of warm oranges and russet browns were the setting to inspire this garden design as we took inspiration from all we'd seen at this unique show to create this design. The Chelsea Courtyard Garden was inspired by small space gardening which returned to the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in 2022 for a second time and the Great Pavilion was brimming with container inspiration. Again, taking inspiration from all we'd seen at the show, Our Courtyard Garden is entered on a relaxing set up of wicker chairs and a refectory table perfect for entertaining, pottering, and enjoying a calm, natural environment. All Kirk & Bradley for Elizabeth Bradley kits are on 12-count mono canvas and use the basketweave stitch. The basketweave stitch is a staple in needlepoint and offers an alternative experience to the Victorian Cross stitch recommended for Elizabeth Bradley tapestry kits. We think you will enjoy using basketweave to bring your Chelsea Gardens to life.
