a year in knitting

It’s that time of year, isn’t it, when one looks back and reflects on the work of the past twelve months. I’ve worked really hard this year, and particularly so at my knitting. As you might imagine, my design process involves a considerable amount of swatching, testing things out, and ripping things back – and this tends to really eat into the time I have to devote to producing finished samples. Despite that, I seem to have completed 6 different accessories and 9 adult garment samples this year, with 7 of those 9 garments featuring allover colourwork. Sheesh!

Knitting is a very slow process, and I am not, by anyone’s reckoning, a speedy knitter. And yet, when you average things out across the year, KDD has released a new pattern once a fortnight.

How can I produce these patterns? Only because of our brilliant team of test and sample knitters. This year, the collective work of the KDD knitting team has been indispensable in helping me to write better, clearer instructions and to iron out errors in the pattern development process. This work has also meant that we’ve been able to inspire club members by showing our Allover patterns in three, four, or even five different colourways. There’s an awful lot of work involved in test and sample knitting, and yet I feel that the creative labour of test knitting is not always well valued – not least by fellow knitters, or indeed, by some knitting-related businesses – so I wanted to conclude this, my last post of 2022, by thanking all the brilliant knitters I’ve worked with this year and showing you some examples of their work. (And if you are interested in working with us next year as a test or sample knitter, you’ll find a few details at the end of this post).

Thanks to each and every member of the KDD knitting team for the beautiful, colourful work you’ve produced this year!

Are you an enthusiastic and competent knitter who might be interested in joining our team of test and sample knitters in 2023? If so, please email Maylin at help@katedaviesdesigns.com using TEST KNITTING as the subject line. In your email, please tell us where in the world you are located, a bit about your knitting experience, and let us know what you are interested in knitting (eg, garments or accessories (or both); textured projects or colourwork (or both)). If we commission a project from you, we will: 1) send you the yarn you need, 2) Pay you fairly for your work 3) Return your work to you at the conclusion of the project (unless you’ve been commissioned to produce a company sample) 4) Credit and acknowledge your work in any patterns and / or book in which it is published.

We look forward to hearing from you and working with you! Though please do bear in mind that the KDD team is now on holiday, and it will be the new year before you receive a response.