AS a woman who has stood in the eye of a storm, Jilli Blackwood has the air of a survivor.

There is a strength and quiet defiance to her demeanour that wasn't there previously. I like this new side to her. My last visit to Blackwood's Glasgow studio was during the summer of 2013. It was on the eve of her being announced as designer of the Team Scotland parade uniforms for the opening ceremony of the 2014 Commonwealth Games. Such was her buoyant mood, she reminded me of a balloon that could slip from its tether and float away into the warm July sky at any moment.

On July 6 this year, almost 12 months later, the final design was unveiled with Blackwood proudly photographed alongside Scottish athletes and chef de mission Jon Doig at the team's holding camp in Stirling. According to her vision, the vibrant colour palette brought together turquoise, fuchsia, caramel and navy blue in a tartan inspired by Scotland's landscapes and four distinctive seasons. The men's uniform comprised a kilt and blue shirt, while the women were dressed in flowing wrap-around dresses and shawl-like wraps.

Yet, what should have been a career high for the textile designer instead marked the beginning of several fraught and tumultuous weeks. As images of the uniforms reached the public domain, ridicule and disdain came thick and fast.

It was a design few were on the fence about: people loved or loathed it. The acerbic comments saw Blackwood's concept compared to "a pair of curtains" and "something a 1970s dance troupe would wear", and a petition launched in a bid to "prevent the use of the Jilli Blackwood Scotland uniforms" garnered almost 28,000 signatures. The joy-filled, soaring balloon I'd witnessed last year was swiftly and cruelly deflated.

When we meet on a crisp November morning some four months later, Blackwood, a graduate of the Glasgow School of Art and a native of the city, has had time to reflect on the furore. She admits the ferocity of the criticism caught her off guard.

"It was on the Sunday evening that I started to receive emails and they weren't very complimentary," says Blackwood, emotional pain flooding her face. "That night I went to bed and I have to say it did feel hurtful. I was amazed that someone would take the time to write in the first place and as they went on it got quite personal.

"There was definitely a bit of self-doubt. I did think: 'Gosh, have I got this wrong?' I'd taken the brief from Commonwealth Games Scotland and it had been agreed all the way down the line. While the ideas were mine, the design was selected by a committee including athletes."

Blackwood, who is renowned for her bold embroidered and woven textiles, previously designed costumes for the closing ceremony at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. She was director of costumes for the handover to Glasgow, dressing 350 performers - who she affectionately dubs "the Blackwood clan" - in a vivid red tartan, and two "Hero Pipers" with bespoke woven rainbow-coloured kilts.

Re-visualising the success of that event helped stem the flow of doubt and stopped her wondering if she had made a terrible mistake. "I kept closing my eyes and seeing it the way I knew it was going to be on the night," she says. "That's what I would remind myself of. Having had the experience of the closing ceremony in Delhi and seeing all the eyes, these little dots looking down in this big, dark stadium, I knew I had to make the Scottish team larger than life otherwise they would disappear among all that.

"This was a statement. There was no point in them coming into the stadium apologetically. This was Scotland and Glasgow's moment hosting a Commonwealth Games: the Scottish team had to be as big as all that."

As the row rumbled on, Blackwood admits she feared it could become distracting for the athletes. "I suppose what was beginning to worry me was: 'Oh, I hope this doesn't upset the team,'" she says. "I spoke about it on the Monday, then on the Tuesday I did an interview for BBC News 24. I decided after that it was finished. I wasn't speaking about it any more."

Blackwood drew solace from the overwhelmingly positive response of the Scottish team itself. "Their reaction was tremendous," she says. "They just loved it." Cyclist Charline Joiner described the uniform as "refreshing and a definite surprise", with rugby sevens player Lee Jones saying it was "very comfortable and eye-catching".

She was further bolstered by a steady stream of supportive emails from across Scotland and as far afield as Australia. Yet, the barrage of abuse from sections of the public remained uncharted territory for the designer. "How did I deal with the rejection?" says Blackwood. "I've never had to respond on that scale before. In the beginning it was a bit of shock; some of the criticism did make me question myself, but after a while I started to read it and think: 'This is ridiculous', especially when the petition came out."

There's an unshrinking look in her eye, her jaw set determinedly. "If it hadn't caused a reaction, I'd have got it wrong," she says. "I knew what it was going to be like on the night and that they had to look strong. The team all looked so amazingly happy when they came out."

There may be a few critics who felt rather silly when they saw how striking the parade uniform looked against the backdrop of Celtic Park that night. Did Blackwood feel vindicated in that moment? "I did," she says, breaking into a smile. "I also felt vindicated the next day when I looked at the front pages of all the papers. There was so much from the opening ceremony they could have used but they chose the Scottish team. It was nice to see that."

Blackwood will chart her story in a forthcoming talk at Glasgow's Riverside Museum. The Yellow Brick Road will be a personal retrospective on her life and career to date.

Her CV is certainly impressive. Blackwood, who turned down a job offer from the late, great dressmaker Jean Muir, has exhibited at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London. The Millennium Kilt was shown alongside work by Vivienne Westwood and Jean Paul Gaultier as part of Men In Skirts (2002). Other highlights include a large-scale wall hanging titled Brithers Be ... for the US Consulate, Edinburgh and a show at the Saachi Gallery, London.

Blackwood, who has three daughters aged 17-23, attributes her business acumen to her father, a fruit importer blessed with the gift of the gab, and her creative talents to her mother, who was a cordon bleu cook. Her childhood home on Glasgow's southside also helped shape her future life path. The former owner had commissioned the Italian artisans who decorated the Glasgow City Chambers to furbish his house with beautifully ornate tiles and mosaics. "It is definitely something that crept into my subconscious and stayed there," she says.

The title of her Riverside Museum event is based loosely on Dorothy's adventures in the Wizard Of Oz. "It was the only film they used to show on Christmas Day when I was a child and I suppose it has stuck with me," says Blackwood. "This talk is going to be about my life journey and The Yellow Brick Road as a visual image in my head is one I can see very clearly.

"It incorporates elements that are part of the film. One [the Tin Man] is looking for a heart and my work definitely springboards from feelings of emotion. Then there is the lion who is a big coward and I've realised along the way how much courage you really need to have in this life. With courage comes risk. Yes, you do evaluate the risk involved, but if you sit on the fence, nothing happens. I can think of so many examples of where I've had to find the courage to do something.

"It's feeling the fear, but walking towards it rather than walking away," she adds. "An artistic life is not all a bed of roses. Sure, there are the Damien Hirsts and Tracey Emins of this life who are amazing successes and well done them but, for me, it comes down to what creating the work actually does for me as a person. I know I'm never happier than when I have a big project and need to bring my creative and emotional best. That's when I feel most alive."

Then there's the scarecrow in search of a brain. "It's about trying to keep the mind as positive and creative as possible all the time," says Blackwood. "I don't know where the mind finishes and the brain begins - I'm not a scientist - but I find it amazing how you can think up a new idea and don't know where it's come from."

And Dorothy's ruby slippers - "there's no place like home"? "This studio," smiles Blackwood. "It's very difficult to dig me out of here."

As for the road ahead, Blackwood is confident with clear direction. Creating the Team Scotland parade uniform has helped inspire her next project: an eponymous range of tartans. "The 2015 Jilli Blackwood tartan range is something I may not have considered before but now feel very strongly about," she says. "I love tartan and know I can bring something new to it."

She lays out swatches on the floor, a kaleidoscope of pinks, turquoise, caramel, golds, purples and grey - all with echoes of the Team Scotland tartan. "I think my plan would be to select six or eight," she says, running an eye over the intricately woven material. She hopes they could be used equally for interiors or clothing.

Blackwood is never short on ideas and has a wish list of projects as long as your arm: a wall hanging for the Scottish Parliament, designing a tartan for a major hotel group or collaborating with a homegrown manufacturer on upholstery fabrics. She quite likes the notion of putting her hopes and aspirations out there to the universe and seeing what it delivers in return. "I do think there is a bit of serendipity to life, but I also believe there is a hell of a lot of hard work," she asserts.

It's difficult to determine where work ends and the rest of life begins for Blackwood, so irrevocably intertwined are the two. "As I'm falling asleep, I've usually still got whatever I'm working on in my mind, and I'm turning it around, a bit like a Rubix Cube," she says. "There comes a point where I have to say: 'Stop. Switch off now.' I imagine it must be a bit like a gymnast, or indeed any athlete, thinking about and visualising their performance."

Blackwood describes herself as someone who always tries to walk "on the sunny side of the street". "I do try to build in happiness or joyfulness to my work - something that lifts the spirit," she says. "Whether critics may look at my work and see it as being vapid, empty and pretty, I know there is great strength in reflecting the joyous side of life."

Jilli Blackwood: The Yellow Brick Road takes place at the Riverside Museum, Glasgow, on November 24, 4.30pm-5.30pm. Entry is free. The event coincides with the museum's Commonwealth Games display, The Road From Delhi, which features Blackwood's costumes

www.jilliblackwood.com