By: KDD September 6, 2019September 9, 2019 interview, Kate Davies, Kate Davies Designs, knitting, textilesfeatured, fenella, India, interview, knitting season, model, Scotland23 Comments

hello, Fenella

Knitting Season is back today with the release of one of my confirmed collection favourites – Grèis Grèis is a simple tunic dress with a colourwork yoke that features 9 different shades of Milarrochy Tweed. Our friend Fenella kindly modelled Grèis for us. We first met Fenella near Loch Lomond where she was doing exactly…

Scottish knitwear, Irish yarn

It’s a very busy week here at KDD! On top of our usual work on a new book and collection, we are launching our seasonal product range before the recommencement of Knitting Season on September 6th. Whew! You may remember that last year we began producing new pullovers using fantastic Shetland yarns spun by Scotland’s…

Coracle

I’m really excited to reveal something which has been a long time in development and of which all of us at KDD are really proud – Coracle. Before I became a manufacturer of yarn and knitwear I was a consumer of both these things. And, as a consumer, I often found myself deeply troubled by…

By: KDD August 26, 2019September 13, 2019 color, colour, History, textile history, textilescolor, colour, dye, dyeing, featured, History, indigo, natural dyeing, textile history29 Comments

Mood Indigo

(top illustration: William Simpson, An Indigo Factory in Bengal (1863) I am currently completing a design project using yarn that has been dyed with natural indigo by my friends at Shilasdair. As I’ve knitted, I’ve often found myself thinking about the links between Scotland and natural indigo dye. Indigo isn’t, of course, a Scottish plant…

By: KDD August 23, 2019August 26, 2019 design, Kate Davies Designs, knitting, textilesdesign, Ester, featured, hat, shilasdair8 Comments

Ester

Meet Ester, the new hat I’ve designed with Shilasdair Ester is a comfortable, slouchy beanie, designed to make the most of three beautiful shades of plant-dyed Coara – a springy blend of BFL and Shetland. The three natural dyes used here are birch, madder, and alder – whose soft and subtle palette I really wanted…

By: KDD August 20, 2019August 27, 2019 amazing knitters, design, Kate Davies, Kate Davies Designs, knitters, knittingdesign, featured, inspiration, knitters, knitting16 Comments

Inspiring projects, inspiring patterns

As the summer draws to a close, I thought I’d round up some of the many inspiring projects that have been knitted in recent months from KDD patterns, and show you a couple of new designs in our yarns. Last week, Melanie Berg revealed a stunning shawl in Àrd-Thìr, which reminded me of the beautiful…

By: KDD August 18, 2019August 18, 2019 color, colour, yarncollaboration, featured, Hebrides, knitting, shilasdair, Skye, skye natural dye company30 Comments

Shilasdair: isle of Skye natural dye company

On our way to North Uist and Berneray a few months ago, we stopped off in Skye to say hello to Kirsty, who now runs Shilasdair, the Isle of Skye natural dye company. I first visited Shilasdair – when it was run by natural-dyeing legend, Eva Lambert, in its old home on the Waternish peninsula…

By: KDD August 14, 2019August 14, 2019 design, inspiration, inspiring projects, interview, yarnÀrd Thìr, conversation, design, designers, Europe, European Yarn Community, featured, interview, knitting, Melanie Berg, yarn12 Comments

“Being European, we are more than the sum of our parts” Melanie Berg

Today, I’m delighted to introduce Melanie Berg as the next participant in our European Yarn Community conversations. Melanie is a German designer whose work will, I’m sure, be already very much admired by many of you. Melanie is best known for her shawls, but she also creates gorgeous modern garments, and everything she makes is…

shop

The KDD online shop stocks our yarn, knitting kits, books, and knitwear (socks, snoods, and jumpers, made right here in Scotland) You can purchase Kate’s hand-knitting patterns as digital PDF downloads through Ravelry Tom’s photographic work is available to purchase as high-quality archival prints To date, we have produced twelve books under the KDD and Makadu…

about KDD

Kate Davies Designs (KDD) was established by Kate Davies in 2010, when a stroke at the age of 36 ended her career as a literary academic. While recovering from her stroke, Kate supported herself by designing digital patterns for hand-knitting, established an independent publishing company, and began to produce books that combined her skills as…

tutorials

Ester A tutorial to make the 5-stitch star motif that features on the Ester hat. Inside and Outside the Red Box. A Bold Beginner Knits Tutorial for the Footfall shawl Triangular shawl construction. A Bold Beginner Knits Tutorial for the Footfall shawl “Join body and sleeves into yoke” A Bold Beginner Knits tutorial for the…

Ringle

By: KDD September 11, 2019September 11, 2019

design, knitting, textilesdesign, knitting, ringle, shilasdair6 Comments

We released another pattern with our friends at Shilasdair today – Ringle Based on the very first, very simple, yoked pullover that I ever designed and knit, Ringle features Shilasdair’s Coara Worsted — a springy blend of Blue Faced Leicester and Shetland fleeces that’s now available in some beautiful naturally-dyed shades. Ringle’s yarn is dyed…

hello, Fenella

By: KDD September 6, 2019September 9, 2019

interview, Kate Davies, Kate Davies Designs, knitting, textilesfeatured, fenella, India, interview, knitting season, model, Scotland23 Comments

Scottish knitwear, Irish yarn

Coracle

Mood Indigo

By: KDD August 26, 2019September 13, 2019

color, colour, History, textile history, textilescolor, colour, dye, dyeing, featured, History, indigo, natural dyeing, textile history29 Comments

Ester

By: KDD August 23, 2019August 26, 2019

design, Kate Davies Designs, knitting, textilesdesign, Ester, featured, hat, shilasdair8 Comments

Inspiring projects, inspiring patterns

By: KDD August 20, 2019August 27, 2019

amazing knitters, design, Kate Davies, Kate Davies Designs, knitters, knittingdesign, featured, inspiration, knitters, knitting16 Comments

Shilasdair: isle of Skye natural dye company

By: KDD August 18, 2019August 18, 2019

color, colour, yarncollaboration, featured, Hebrides, knitting, shilasdair, Skye, skye natural dye company30 Comments

“Being European, we are more than the sum of our parts” Melanie Berg

By: KDD August 14, 2019August 14, 2019

design, inspiration, inspiring projects, interview, yarnÀrd Thìr, conversation, design, designers, Europe, European Yarn Community, featured, interview, knitting, Melanie Berg, yarn12 Comments

looking forward

Hello! Kate here. August is the month at KDD when we all start to look forward to what’s coming in the autumn. This season we are busier than ever, with a wide range of different projects and new releases. Next month, for example, we will finally be able to begin to release the new knitwear…

The McCune Smith cafe

By: KDD July 30, 2019August 26, 2019

History, People MAKE Glasgow, Politics, writingabolition, Glasgow, james mccune smith, mccune smith, mccune smith cafe, People MAKE Glasgow, slavery29 Comments

Hello, it’s Tom here. In today’s People Make Glasgow post I’d like to introduce the McCune Smith Cafe and Dr. James McCune Smith, the important 19th Century African-American abolitionist, physician, educator and intellectual, after whom the cafe is named. Glasgow’s remarkable nineteenth-century growth was due to imperial trade. That Glasgow was built on tobacco and…

“For me, Europe means connection”: Yasmin Harper, Laine des Iles

By: KDD July 18, 2019July 19, 2019

wool, yarnBrexit, connection, conversation, Europe, European Yarn Community, featured, Laines des Iles, Yasmin Harper43 Comments

Hello, everyone, it’s Kate here – to introduce a new series of conversations on the KDD blog. I was born in 1973, a year after the Treaty of Accession paved the way for Britain’s entry into the European Union. Both sides of my family are shaped by histories of European immigration, and as a teenager,…