Award-winning Scottish publishing and design
Friday is pattern reveal day, and I have a brand new sweater design to show you! I’m a huge fan of the arched Selbu motifs which are most often traditionally used on gloves and mittens and you’ll see the long-standing influence of these motifs on my design work in hats like Richard the Roundhead, or…
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Hello, everyone! Thanks so much for your comments on yesterday’s post (which if you enjoy on-screen knits as much as I do I suggest you go and read!) I want to say an especial thanks to Davina for the link to the top 118 Twin Peaks knits (I personally have a thing for no72, though…
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We were able to put quite a few things in the KDD shop last week, including our brand new 10 Years in the Making book. The book is now available for wholesale too, so if you are a bookshop or yarn store (or know a bookshop or yarn store) who would like to stock this…
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I think the month of January – and perhaps particularly this January – often seems rather dark. These are certainly dark days for many of us around the world, but there are some visible green shoots, improving prospects, and the hope of brighter days ahead. I wanted my first design of 2021 to speak to…
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When we are working on a collection, Mel and I often knit several samples of a single design. This not only allows us to test and hone the pattern instructions (for maximum knit-ability, and knitterly-ness) but means we get to see how a design appears in alternate colourways. For Sterntaucher, we thought it would be…
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Hello! I’m happy to say we’ve just about completed all our behind-the-scenes admin, and have been able to reopen the KDD online shop today. Among the new things you’ll find there is our just-published 10 Years in the Making book (beautifully produced for us by Glasgow’s Bell & Bain), plus two brand new shades of…
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As the first copies of our 10 Years in the Making book arrived in the KDD warehouse yesterday, I thought (not for the first time) about what a very weird year it has been. We published four brand new titles . . . . . .and created 23 new patterns – the majority of which…
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Lynsey Walters is a fellow Scottish designer of whose bold, colourful work I am an enormous fan – and whose necklaces and earrings (I am thrilled to say) we are now stocking in the KDD shop. You may already be aware, of how much I love Lynsey’s work, as I seem to have worn quite…
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Designing hand-knit garments (and clear instructions for others to follow) can involve a lot of compromising, a lot of accepting that, for a multitude of reasons the finished thing won’t turn out quite as you initially envisaged. But sometimes you design something that looks and feels exactly as you expected. This design started with a…
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We’ve been waiting for the new edition of YOKES to arrive from our printer, and I thought I’d go back through my records and check exactly how many copies we’d sold, in total, since the book was first published in December, 2014. I discovered that the total number of YOKES we’ve printed and sold is…
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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…
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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…
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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.…
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For KDD, as for most other small businesses, the past few months have certainly posed their difficulties. I have not talked about such difficulties here: though some things have not been easy, I’m continually reminded that, unlike so many others, absolutely nothing we’ve had to face in any way counts as hardship. I’m grateful for…
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One of the things I’ve been really struck by, as I reach the end of the process of writing our People Make Glasgow book, is just how many thriving enterprises in this city are led by brilliant young women. I’ve found learning more about the innovative work of makers, artist and designers like Rachel E…
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Hello! Friday is project reveal day, and today I wanted to show you a new iteration of one of my favourite designs of 2019 – the Udal pullover, designed for and with Meg Rodger’s Birlinn Yarn Company. Inspired by one of my favourite Hebridean places, and using Meg’s own fabulously hardy and beautiful Hebridean wool…
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