By: KDD November 13, 2019November 13, 2019 Felicity Ford, feminism, Kate Davies, knitting, textilesbalance for better blanket, blanket, design, featured, Felicity Ford, felix ford, International Women's Day, knitting, square share24 Comments

International Women’s Day best practice award

We are thrilled and honoured to announce that our collaborative blanket celebrating 30 diverse creative women has received a “best practice award” from International Women’s Day. We are especially proud, because such awards are usually conferred on much larger companies, groups and organisations. We’ve always felt that, however small we are as a business, it’s…

By: KDD&Co. November 10, 2019November 11, 2019 knitting, Milarrochy Tweed, textilesBreiwick, colourwork, Ella Gordon, featured, Jane Hunter, knitting, milarrochy heids24 Comments

Breiwick – Jane’s first colourwork

…since Autumn is most definitely here I’m on to the next instalment of my first year of knitting.

Could I contend with colour-work?

By: KDD November 8, 2019November 8, 2019 knittingfeatured, hats, heids, knitalong, knitting, milarrochy heids17 Comments

It’s on your heid

At this time of year – when the wind picks up and the first dusting of snow appears on the hills – I’m generally filled with an urge to whip up a hat to keep my heid warm. This November is no different. Over the past few days I’ve found myself musing about potential patterns,…

By: KDD November 1, 2019November 2, 2019 creativity, design, publishingbooks, business, commissioning, distribution, featured, Kate Davies designs, Makadu, Make / Mark, new authors, publishing, trade, wholesale13 Comments

Publishing news

In recent years, the book-publishing side of what we do here at KDD has grown pretty dramatically. We’ve made some exciting changes that reflect that growth – both in the way we distribute our titles as well as in the kinds of books we publish. You’ll find more about the latter topic towards the end…

A square for Adrienne Rich

Are you interested in designing your own blanket squares using the Square Share pattern template? If so, this post is for you! In what follows, I’ll describe my process when developing and designing a chart for a blanket square, inspired by the work of Adrienne Rich. If one has favourite poets, then Adrienne Rich is…

Square Share

A little over a year ago I travelled to Reading for a confab with my friend Felix. We’d had an idea to work on a project together with our mutual friend and colleague, Mel, and wanted to thrash things out. By the time I was heading north again, we’d come up with a plan: to…

By: KDD October 11, 2019October 11, 2019 creativity, design, Kate Davies, Kate Davies Designs, knittingcreativity, design, featured, knitting, knitting season21 Comments

Let Glasgow Flourish

Today we released a new pattern – the Let Glasgow Flourish blanket. Inspired by the work of textile artist, educator, and suffragette, Ann Macbeth, the blanket echoes a civic banner Macbeth created in 1910. The pared-back colourwork and abstracted motifs I’ve used speak to Macbeth’s own Glasgow Style and makes a wonderful showpiece! Knitted at…

Udal

In the spring of 2018, after a hard winter in which I’d been struggling with my depression, I spent some time in Berneray and North Uist. You can get a sense of how much I immediately loved the place, and how very much I enjoyed meeting Meg Rodger and learning more about her work –…

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 fourteen 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…

International Women’s Day best practice award

By: KDD November 13, 2019November 13, 2019

Felicity Ford, feminism, Kate Davies, knitting, textilesbalance for better blanket, blanket, design, featured, Felicity Ford, felix ford, International Women's Day, knitting, square share24 Comments

Breiwick – Jane’s first colourwork

By: KDD&Co. November 10, 2019November 11, 2019

knitting, Milarrochy Tweed, textilesBreiwick, colourwork, Ella Gordon, featured, Jane Hunter, knitting, milarrochy heids24 Comments

…since Autumn is most definitely here I’m on to the next instalment of my first year of knitting.

Could I contend with colour-work?

It’s on your heid

By: KDD November 8, 2019November 8, 2019

knittingfeatured, hats, heids, knitalong, knitting, milarrochy heids17 Comments

Publishing news

By: KDD November 1, 2019November 2, 2019

creativity, design, publishingbooks, business, commissioning, distribution, featured, Kate Davies designs, Makadu, Make / Mark, new authors, publishing, trade, wholesale13 Comments

A square for Adrienne Rich

Square Share

Let Glasgow Flourish

By: KDD October 11, 2019October 11, 2019

creativity, design, Kate Davies, Kate Davies Designs, knittingcreativity, design, featured, knitting, knitting season21 Comments

Udal

Soul Food Sisters

By: KDD September 22, 2019September 22, 2019

People MAKE Glasgow, textilesbaking, featured, feminism, food, photography, women16 Comments

Hello again, it’s Tom here with my latest update on the People Make Glasgow photo-documentary project. In today’s post it is my huge pleasure to introduce to you the Soul Food Sisters. The Soul Food Sisters are an all-female, multicultural, not-for-profit food collective. Established in 2013, this group of women are chefs on a social…

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, Scotland25 Comments

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…