By: KDD May 30, 2020May 31, 2020 History, landscape, textilescarbeth, Glasgow, landscape, racism, Scotland, scottishness, slavery, sugar, sugar aristocracy34 Comments

Carbeth: slavery in the landscape

Here, at Carbeth, we live in a landscape underwritten by many rich and complex human stories. Neolithic people lived and travelled through Carbeth many thousand of years ago and, since these early settlers, this landscape has many stories of passage to tell, from seventeenth-century cattle drovers, to nineteenth-century railway navvies, to the walkers on today’s…

By: KDD May 28, 2020May 28, 2020 costume, Family, making, Politics, process, writingchildhood, costume, dressing up, fancy dress, Handywoman, Politics, writing13 Comments

dressing up . . . 1970s style

I’ve been suffering with a migraine, and am still feeling very ropey, so thought I’d just follow on from yesterday’s post about masks and performance, with a few images (and words) about my childhood – in which costume and dressing up played a significant role – and which Pilar is now drawing on in the…

the mask’s on you

Jaguar and Tiger, Chilapa, 2017. Phyllis Galembo, Mexico: Masks, Rituals (2019) This is the fifth in my series of posts about my participation in an Applied Arts Scotland / British Council Crafting Futures residency, the work I’m developing as a consequence, and the impact of the project on my own practice. You can read parts…

By: KDD May 26, 2020May 26, 2020 Bruce, gardening, vegetablesbruce, garden, gardening, potatoes, shed, sheds, vegetables38 Comments

SHEDS one and two

Hello, it is I, Bruce. Today I am here to tell you about SHED. If you don’t know the meaning of SHED, I can reveal it is a strange wooden place with a distinctive smell in which humans like to spend a lot of time, particularly at this time of year. Here there are two…

By: KDD May 25, 2020May 25, 2020 creativity, design, Felicity Ford, journalingdesign, journal, journaling, process, sketching, stationery, washi tape28 Comments

journal pages

I’m at that stage of developing a group of designs where I seem to be recording a lot of ideas and sketches in my journal. As I was working on something today, I looked back over a few of the spreads with ideas for the designs I’ve recently published – like the Yorlin one above.…

By: KDD May 24, 2020May 24, 2020 color, colour, People MAKE Glasgow, photographycolour, film, kodak, lartigue, making, People MAKE Glasgow, photography, process, Shetland Oo13 Comments

kodak portra 160

Hello everyone. Tom here with a post about my new favourite colour film, Kodak Portra 160. What I find really exciting about the discipline of photography is that despite the advancement of technologies available, access to old techniques remains, meaning that the rich and complex history of photography continues to be available for us to…

By: KDD May 23, 2020May 23, 2020 collaboration, design, knitting, Melcardigan, collaboration, design, knitting, Lace, pattern, pattern writing, swatching, yorlin25 Comments

rows 1, 5, 9 or 15

There are things involved with developing and writing a knitting pattern which you rarely get to see. This is one of those things. Yorlin is knitted top down. This means you can work your cardigan to exactly the length that you’d like, so that it suits your body. The design features two lace panels, using…

By: KDD May 22, 2020May 22, 2020 color, colour, design, Milarrochy Tweed, yarncardigan, cowslip, design, Lace, Milarrochy Tweed, yarn, yellow, yellowhammer, yorlin62 Comments

Yorlin

Good morning! When I sketched this yellow cardigan in my notebook towards the beginning of the year, it was with the thought that I might get to wear it, with a favourite dress, at the wedding of my friends, Briony and Will. Like many couples in similar situations, Will and Briony have had to change…

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 published sixteen books under the KDD, Makadu and…

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…

Carbeth: slavery in the landscape

By: KDD May 30, 2020May 31, 2020

History, landscape, textilescarbeth, Glasgow, landscape, racism, Scotland, scottishness, slavery, sugar, sugar aristocracy34 Comments

near // far away

By: KDD May 29, 2020May 30, 2020

beasties, photography, playbeetles, moon, photography27 Comments

near far away near far away near far away near far away near far away near and far away near and far away

dressing up . . . 1970s style

By: KDD May 28, 2020May 28, 2020

costume, Family, making, Politics, process, writingchildhood, costume, dressing up, fancy dress, Handywoman, Politics, writing13 Comments

the mask’s on you

SHEDS one and two

By: KDD May 26, 2020May 26, 2020

Bruce, gardening, vegetablesbruce, garden, gardening, potatoes, shed, sheds, vegetables38 Comments

journal pages

By: KDD May 25, 2020May 25, 2020

creativity, design, Felicity Ford, journalingdesign, journal, journaling, process, sketching, stationery, washi tape28 Comments

kodak portra 160

By: KDD May 24, 2020May 24, 2020

color, colour, People MAKE Glasgow, photographycolour, film, kodak, lartigue, making, People MAKE Glasgow, photography, process, Shetland Oo13 Comments

rows 1, 5, 9 or 15

By: KDD May 23, 2020May 23, 2020

collaboration, design, knitting, Melcardigan, collaboration, design, knitting, Lace, pattern, pattern writing, swatching, yorlin25 Comments

Yorlin

By: KDD May 22, 2020May 22, 2020

color, colour, design, Milarrochy Tweed, yarncardigan, cowslip, design, Lace, Milarrochy Tweed, yarn, yellow, yellowhammer, yorlin62 Comments

Crafting Futures: meaningful collaboration

By: KDD May 21, 2020May 21, 2020

Crafting Futures, creativity, friendsApplied Arts Scotland, collaboration, Crafting Futures, creativity, friendship, making, mexico, practice, process18 Comments

This post is the fourth in my series about my Applied Arts Scotland / Crafting Futures residency, the work I’m developing as a consequence, and the impact of the experience on my practice. Here are links to parts one, two and three. During the Crafting Futures residency, I was paired up with my collaboration partner…

bluebells . . . and buttons

By: KDD May 20, 2020May 20, 2020

buttons, design, wildflowersbluebells, buttons, design, flowers, landscape, photography, rain, Scotland, wildflowers33 Comments

Good morning! Wow! I really enjoyed your myriad button views! It was fascinating to read through all your comments and I really appreciated hearing so many different perspectives! But it was especially intriguing to me that the blue buttons came out so far on top. I kind of agree with the majority view: the blue…

help me choose buttons

By: KDD May 19, 2020May 19, 2020

buttons, design, Milarrochy Tweed, yarn, yarnbuttons, design, Milarrochy Tweed, yellow228 Comments

Hello! Today I’m putting the finishing touches to a new cardigan which (all being well) I’ll be able to show you on Friday. I have spent the past hour or so poking around the button box . . . with some success, and a wee bit of frustration. I fear my button-vision may no longer…