zwiebelmuster

It’s Wednesday, and that means it’s time to discover today’s My Place pattern, which is a delicious feast of interdisciplinary design! Multi-talented Nicole Wagler spends her working life among ceramics, and it is her deep love and knowledge of the styles, history and processes of decorative tableware that has inspired her Zwiebelmuster shawl: a gorgeous…

By: KDD February 21, 2021February 21, 2021 landscape, Scotland, walking, West Highland Way, West Highlandscoinneach, Conic Hill, landscape, walking, West Highland Way20 Comments

back up conic hill

I know I am really lucky to be able to walk outside for an hour or so, every single day. But though I love my daily walks, I have of late rather missed walking much further, in the hills. A few days ago, I had a sudden urge to go for a good long walk…

YOLK!

One punning moment last December, I decided it might be fun to knit the familiar homonyms – yoke and yolk – into an egg-themed sweater. So please behold – my YOLK YOKE. Yes, I am standing in a frozen landscape dressed as a fried egg – what of it? There are so many egg-cellent things…

the thaw

Hello and welcome to our Wednesday My Place post! Today’s contribution is something really special, and I’m very excited to introduce it! First of all, the design is the kind of shawl I really like: bold and graphic in appearance, but with lots of variety and some novel features that keep the knitting interesting. Next,…

the fabric of memory

Do you dream of textiles? Clothes, in particular, form a routine focus of my dreams. In a dream, I might find myself wandering through the streets of an unknown city, and, arrested by a window display, be drawn inside to browse a whole collection of imaginary garments in an imaginary store. Dreams also frequently involve…

Lilias Day (in colour)

Good morning and happy Friday, everyone. How are you all doing? Here in Scotland we are in the middle of quite a crisp, cold snap. I’m really enjoying my long local walks, the combination of snow and blue skies, and especially the fact that the mornings and evenings are becoming palpably lighter. There are a…

Na Séasúir

Welcome to our Wednesday My Place post! I’ve been thinking a lot about knitting and time of late: Knitting takes time, makes it, and reflects it, and I’ve noticed that knitters have recently been using their projects in a range of really interesting ways to mark time’s passing. Some of these projects seem to be…

make / mend: Collingwood-Norris

There are many creative handywomen I admire here in Scotland, and today I’m really happy to introduce you to one of them: Flora Collingwood-Norris. A super-talented designer of knitwear (of whose palette I’ve long been a huge fan), over the past couple of years, Flora has proudly advocated both the value of making, and the…

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 eighteen titles 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 tutorialfor the Upstream…

zwiebelmuster

back up conic hill

By: KDD February 21, 2021February 21, 2021

landscape, Scotland, walking, West Highland Way, West Highlandscoinneach, Conic Hill, landscape, walking, West Highland Way20 Comments

YOLK!

the thaw

the fabric of memory

Lilias Day (in colour)

Na Séasúir

make / mend: Collingwood-Norris

Cas

Welcome to our Wednesday My Place post! All of the My Place designs feature Milarrochy Tweed – a yarn that’s spun for us in Donegal and which is, in so many ways, a “typical” Irish tweed with its characteristic neps and flecks. Here at KDD, we feel particularly close to our Irish friends, in both…

re-knitting

By: KDD January 31, 2021January 31, 2021

design, knitting, making, processamazing knitters, baffies, bieldy, design, knitters, knitting, making, peerie flooers, process, reknitting47 Comments

I’ve just finished re-knitting Lilias Day. This second version is really very different from the first and I’m excited to show it to you (hopefully soon). While I was working on the yoke, I started to think about how very fundamental the experience of re-knitting is, certainly to the way I knit, and in some…

Green Shoots mittens

By: KDD January 29, 2021January 29, 2021

colour, design, knitting, Milarrochy Tweed, patternsdesign, foxglove, free download, Green Shoots Mittens, Green Shoots Tam, Milarrochy Tweed, mittens, pattern, stranded colourwork54 Comments

Happy Friday! If you are a subscriber to the KDD shop newsletter then please check your inbox! I’ve released a new pattern today, and sent out a code enabling you to download it for free. These jolly mittens offer a fresh burst of floral colour to cheer the end of January, and accompany the tam…

Gitchi-Gami

Welcome to the very first post from our My Place project! We’re kicking things off with a designer who I’m sure is already familiar to many of you – Virginia Sattler-Reimer. I’ve never met Virginia in person, but I feel like I’ve “known” her forever: she’s one of those people I eagerly followed back in…

destination: sleeve island

By: KDD January 24, 2021January 24, 2021

design, knitting, making, processcircular needles, design, fixed circulars, knitting, knitting styles, making, process, sleeve island, sleeves75 Comments

I used to be one of the many knitters who didn’t particularly enjoy a visit to sleeve island. Working with dpns or a long circular and magic loop, I rarely looked forward to knitting the second sleeve of a pair. This changed radically when I started knitting with 8 or 9 inch fixed circulars a…

lilias day

Good morning, and happy Friday, everyone! I’ve a new design to show to you – Lilias Day I knitted two pullovers over the festive period, featuring the same Selbu motif. In Orchle, I used the motif as an allover pattern around the bottom of the pullover . . . . . . and in Lilias…

introducing My Place

By: KDD January 20, 2021January 20, 2021

amazing knitters, business, competition, design, publishingcollaboration, collection, competition, design, designers, Milarrochy Tweed, My Place, shawls, yarn24 Comments

You may (or may not) remember that last year we organised one of our regular design competitions. The theme was “My Place” and the idea was that competition entrants design a shawl, hap, wrap, scarf, cowl, snood, kerchief, or other neckwear accessory in Milarrochy Tweed inspired by their “place” in the world – however they…

jags

By: KDD January 18, 2021January 18, 2021

beasties, Bobby, Bruce, Familybruce, Coronavirus, Covid, etymology, innoculation, jag, jaggy, language, Scots, vacccine, vaccination, words58 Comments

Hiya, it is I, Bruce. Today I am here to tell you about the history and meaning of a very common Scots word which, it seems, very few of you outside Scotland are aware of. That word is jag. In Scotland, the word jag is often used in reference to pretty much any sharp or…