By: KDD September 28, 2020September 28, 2020 History, making, People MAKE Glasgow, photography, Politics, writingbook, Glasgow, History, People MAKE Glasgow, photography, Politics, publishing, slavery, writing7 Comments

Glasgow’s atelier economy: then and now

Today I thought I’d share with you the introductory words I wrote for People MAKE Glasgow . For me – a former eighteenth-century specialist – the connections between Glasgow’s eighteenth-century past and its twenty-first century present have always been apparent, and I really enjoyed having the opportunity to write about those connections here. People MAKE…

By: KDD September 27, 2020September 27, 2020 landscape, photography, Scotlandcarbeth, Carbeth loch, congratulations, photography17 Comments

congratulations, Megan and Nathan!

We’ve had some beautiful, golden September weather here recently, and have been making the most of it for our 10 Years in the Making photoshoots. Due to local Covid restrictions, these shoots involve just Tom and myself, but this also means we can get up and start taking photos at first light, when there’s often…

By: KDD September 18, 2020September 18, 2020 creativity, design, knitting10 Years in the making, club, clubs, creativity, design, knitting13 Comments

one week to go!

Well, there’s just one week to go until the start of our 10 Years in the Making Club, and we are all geared up and ready for three months of knitting fun! This is the fifth club we’ve run at KDD, and each one has been a little different. Our first – the Seven Skeins…

By: KDD September 11, 2020September 11, 2020 People MAKE Glasgowcreativity, making, manufacturing, People MAKE Glasgow, publishing8 Comments

People MAKE Glasgow

Hurrah! It is People MAKE Glasgow launch day! As well as introducing you to what the book’s about, in this wee film you see one of the Glasgow makers featured in it – talented signwriter Rachel E Millar – creating the book’s cover art on one of the interior walls of the KDD warehouse. In…

By: KDD September 10, 2020September 10, 2020 design, knittingdesign, doocot, knitting, Schiehallion, yarn17 Comments

a new doocot!

Good morning, everyone! We are all very happy (and indeed somewhat relieved) to have finally revealed Schiehallion, and opened subscriptions to the 10 Years in the Making club, in the brand-new-look webshop that we’ve been working on behind the scenes. Yes, my feet have actually left the ground in that photo – it is no…

By: KDD September 9, 2020September 9, 2020 wool, yarnbritish wool, colour, knitting, palette, Schiehallion, yarn22 Comments

schiehallion

Morning, everyone! First up, I should let you know that the KDD shop is once more up and running, and subscriptions to the 10 Years in the Making club are now open! Next, I can finally tell you about our new flagship yarn, Schiehallion This is a yarn that’s been a long time in the…

By: KDD September 7, 2020September 18, 2020 Kate Davies, Kate Davies Designs, knitting10 Years in the making, club, design, handknitting, knitting, launch, patterns, publishing, subscription club, yarn34 Comments

10 years in the making club

Hello! We have a busy week ahead here at KDD – and the whole team is still hard at work preparing everything behind the scenes for three almost-simultaneous big launches: our People MAKE Glasgow book; our beautiful new Schiehallion yarn, and our new club. I’ll tell you all about Schiehallion later in the week, but…

By: KDD August 28, 2020August 28, 2020 design, knittingbritish wool, cables, cardigan, design, horology, Kate Davies designs, knitting, Laxtons, Sheepsoft, spinning, wool, yarn27 Comments

horology

We’ve a new pattern release today: Horology! This is a cardigan I designed as part of a collaboration with my friends at Laxtons, who are about to release some wonderful new yarns for hand-knitters. I’ll explain a bit. Laxtons are a Yorkshire yarn manufacturer who develop and spin many wonderful yarns, with many different purposes.…

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 the KDD shop or Ravelry Tom’s photographic work is available to purchase as high-quality archival prints To date, we have published seventeen books under…

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 learning to live with the effects of her stroke, Kate supported herself by designing digital patterns for hand-knitting, established an independent publishing company, and began to produce books…

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…

Glasgow’s atelier economy: then and now

By: KDD September 28, 2020September 28, 2020

History, making, People MAKE Glasgow, photography, Politics, writingbook, Glasgow, History, People MAKE Glasgow, photography, Politics, publishing, slavery, writing7 Comments

congratulations, Megan and Nathan!

By: KDD September 27, 2020September 27, 2020

landscape, photography, Scotlandcarbeth, Carbeth loch, congratulations, photography17 Comments

one week to go!

By: KDD September 18, 2020September 18, 2020

creativity, design, knitting10 Years in the making, club, clubs, creativity, design, knitting13 Comments

People MAKE Glasgow

By: KDD September 11, 2020September 11, 2020

People MAKE Glasgowcreativity, making, manufacturing, People MAKE Glasgow, publishing8 Comments

a new doocot!

By: KDD September 10, 2020September 10, 2020

design, knittingdesign, doocot, knitting, Schiehallion, yarn17 Comments

schiehallion

By: KDD September 9, 2020September 9, 2020

wool, yarnbritish wool, colour, knitting, palette, Schiehallion, yarn22 Comments

10 years in the making club

By: KDD September 7, 2020September 18, 2020

Kate Davies, Kate Davies Designs, knitting10 Years in the making, club, design, handknitting, knitting, launch, patterns, publishing, subscription club, yarn34 Comments

horology

By: KDD August 28, 2020August 28, 2020

design, knittingbritish wool, cables, cardigan, design, horology, Kate Davies designs, knitting, Laxtons, Sheepsoft, spinning, wool, yarn27 Comments

a few nice things

There is a lot going on here behind the scenes (I’ve been writing a book and designing a new collection with our brand new yarn) and I’ve not found myself with much spare time for blog posting . . . but in amongst all the hard work I’ve been enjoying some nice things, such as…

end of summer knitting

By: KDD August 22, 2020August 22, 2020

amazing knitters, creativity, inspiration, knitters, knittingamazing knitters, inspiration, inspiring projects, knitters, knitting, yarn12 Comments

note: links in this post refer back to Ravelry projects and profiles. Perhaps because I worked for so long in universities, September has always had a fresh start-of-a-new-year feel about it to me, and I suspect that might also be the case for anyone who works with (or just enjoys) yarn and knitting. Here at…

Lunardi in Campsie

The revival of my eighteenth-century balloon-o-mania was inspired after some recent walks around Clachan of Camspie and Milton of Campsie (just north and east of where we live) during which I discovered that that balloonist, Vincent Lunardi, landed in Campsie Glen at the conclusion of his second flight from Glasgow in November 1785. After wowing…

balloons

I’ve a long-held fascination with late eighteenth-century hot air balloons and ballooning. In fact, I’ve even knitted an eighteenth-century balloon (in a square of our International Women’s Day blanket, which references the Montgolfier balloon that appears in the final lines of Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s brilliant poem, Washing Day) In the past few weeks, my historic…