A Shared Table | Creative Responses

This season, we consider the art of a good meal and the daily rituals that help ground and connect us. We celebrate the joy of slowing down and spending time together, and of careful preparation using fresh ingredients served on tableware collected over time. Above all, we cherish meaningful conversation over a shared table.

To celebrate our Spring Summer 2026 collection, we invited our community to respond to our seasonal theme, A Shared Table, with sketches, illustrations, and other creative works, sharing the results on social media. We were delighted with the variety of responses – from oil paintings to miniature collage works – that showcased the deeply personal nature of one’s relationship to this theme.

We had two runners-up and one winner for this season’s competition. Our winner is Jess Littlewood, a collage and textile artist living in Thornton Heath, South London. Our two runners-up are public health consultant and mixed-media artist Elizabeth Griffiths and Jess Fraser, a textile designer and interior product developer.

Jess Littlewood

Jess first came up with the idea for quilted vegetables in the middle of winter, when there was little life outside to inspire. “I work on a table in my living room, which in the winter is also where we eat,” she says. “The table often had this cabbage sat in the middle of it while we ate, and it became a kind of accidental centrepiece.”

Jess created her fabric sculptures by layering cotton pieces with batting in between, achieving the wrinkled texture by hand-quilting the leaves and pulling the threads tightly. The middle pieces are stuffed with recycled hollow fibre.

“I love the form of vegetables, particularly leafy vegetables like cabbage.” She has built a collection of vegetable-shaped tableware over the years, which she looks forward to using outdoors as the weather warms. “I enjoy eating in the garden at a table that my husband made. Weekend lunches outside with family and friends always make me really happy.”

Elizabeth Griffiths

Elizabeth approached her painting with colour as the focus. “I decided to take something that was already bright and colourful and add in some more colour to convey their vibrancy and freshness,” she explains. “I’m always inspired by the photos in the TOAST magazine and wanted to create that same sense of depth.” Elizabeth's painting was made using concentrated watercolours on paper, a medium she has been experimenting with for some time.

Carrots, a favourite vegetable since childhood, seemed an obvious muse. “I'm told I ate plates full of carrots when I was younger,” she laughs. Food is a nostalgic subject for Elizabeth. Growing up, her family hosted annual garden parties, and she still fondly remembers the taste of barbecued sausages from the local butcher and her neighbour's potato curry. “I recently re-found the recipe, and cooking it brought back comforting memories.”

Jess Fraser

After a visit to Charleston House in East Sussex, Jess was inspired by the tactile nature of the interiors. “Every surface was covered, and you could really sense the warmth of the space,” she recalls. “I tried to encapsulate those feelings in a tangible textile piece.”

She crafted her response using natural-dye pastes, screenprinted onto felted British wool. During the making process, Jess held a dinner party, asking friends to sketch and write on the tablecloth in response to various prompts. “Drawing from the images taken and conversations shared, I designed the imagery and the piece – the candles, the flowers, the gifts given.”

Jess regularly attends and hosts shared meals. “Recently, we dined at a friend’s new flat; a stop at the pub beforehand and then everyone crowded around her table. There weren’t enough seats, and someone knocked over a plant pot, but it’s those little shared moments of joy and laughter that make it such a special memory.”

Thank you to everyone who entered our competition. You can view all of the entries through the hashtag #TOASTASharedTable.