In her work Leila uses the landscape of Orkney to celebrate life and nature around her, thus evoking a sense of time and space. The tapestries are woven on a large, extending, upright loom in the High Gobelins technique, using cotton warp at 8 warps per inch. For the weft Leila mainly uses a mixture of Shetland wool, Swedish linen and American cotton but likes to be able to experiment with other materials to achieve the most suitable effect for each idea.

Much of Leila's work incorporates text which she composes herself whilst exploring the theme on which she is working. Drawing and planning for a tapestry takes as much time as weaving, so each piece may take between 2-4 months to complete.