disability – KDD & Co

Thoughtful design

like the human body, knitting is infinitely adaptable

knitting through change

By: Kate Davies Designs March 16, 2023March 16, 2023

amazing knitters, design, disability, knitting, writingamazing knitters, disabilty, embodiment, GPA, granulomatosis with polyangiitis, knitting, Lisa Payne, writing40 Comments

Lisa Payne shares the story of how knitting became a lifeline for her body and sense of self.

Loch Clair and Loch Coulin

a low-level yomp in a glorious landscape

“you’d never know”

By: Kate Davies Designs November 9, 2021November 9, 2021

disability, strokeableism, disability, judgment, stroke87 Comments

what not to say to someone who has had a stroke

a coat for falling

By: Kate Davies Designs April 4, 2020April 4, 2020

disability, poetry, stroke, textilescoat, Coats, disability, meaning, poem, poetry, stroke, textiles39 Comments

Good morning! Are there garments in your wardrobes from which a particular event or association is difficult to shake? I have friends, for example, who after wearing a certain dress at a funeral, have found that putting it on again becomes difficult. I’m a particularly garment-attached person, and there’s perhaps no garment to which I’m…

protective measures

By: Kate Davies Designs April 2, 2020April 2, 2020

disability, poetry, stroke, walking, writingbirds, disability, landscape, nature, poem, stroke, walking30 Comments

Good morning, how are you all doing? Tom really enjoyed all of your wonderful (and hugely helpful) responses to yesterday’s post – and I suspect you’ll see him following up many of these paper folding leads quite soon. . . . It’s rather blustery and rainy here today (though the weather is less severe than…

walking words

By: Kate Davies Designs March 25, 2020

disability, landscape, poetry, writingamanda thomson, disability, landscape, language, nature writing, poem, poetry, Scots, scots dictionary of nature, walking, writing37 Comments

Good morning, everyone. Today I thought I’d share with you one of the poems I recently read at Write by the Sea. I’m someone who loves walking, and since my stroke in 2010, I’m also someone who has a disabled body. If you’ve read Handywoman, you might remember that a really formative moment in my…

Etac and me

By: Kate Davies Designs September 7, 2018September 7, 2018

design, disability, Handywoman, strokeassistive technology, design, disability, etac, industrial design, making, objects, research, Sweden, tools, writing36 Comments

One of Handywoman’s central themes is the importance of tools and made-things in everyday life. I have a different, and much more nuanced, understanding of well-designed tools and objects post-stroke simply because my own physical deficits forced me to notice, and to reflect upon, how such objects addressed (or often failed to address) my body…

Handywoman is published!

By: Kate Davies Designs August 23, 2018

disability, Handywoman, strokeauthor, Handywoman, Kate Davies, packing, publishing, shipping, writer, writing81 Comments

Just thought I’d drop in to let you know that Handywoman has now been published and that all pre-ordered copies have been shipped. Handywoman was expertly printed at Bell and Bain Glasgow . . . from where it crossed the river, and travelled just a few miles to our warehouse in Clydebank. . . would…

grey: not pregnant

By: Kate Davies Designs August 5, 2018August 5, 2018

colour, disability, feminism, knittingchildlessness, children, disability, feminism, fertility, grey hair, hair, knitting, Milarrochy Tweed, stroke, women437 Comments

Hello, here is my new hair, and my new cardigan. For quite a while it has been obvious (to me at least) that my hair was no longer naturally brown, but grey. I got to a point a few months ago when I was just tired of the continual touching up. What might my hair…

a question of proportion

By: Kate Davies Designs July 24, 2018July 24, 2018

design, disability, stroke, styleage, big pants, disability, garment design, knitting, knitwear design, proportion, shape, style94 Comments

I’m working on new designs and have found myself musing upon questions of proportion. (please don’t laugh at my shoddy sketching. I am useless with a pencil and Fashionary is a genuine godsend for me!) It recently occurred to me just how much, over the past twelve months or so, I have been enjoying experimenting…

Strathendrick (and a personal note about modelling)

By: Kate Davies Designs January 19, 2018January 19, 2018

design, disability, feminism, knitting, West Highland Waydesign, disability, modelling, strathendrick, West Highland Way353 Comments

This week, the West Highland Way Club passes through Strathendrick and Strathblane, close to where I live. I walk through these beautiful valleys (or straths) every single day, enjoying the changing seasons and my surroundings. It is a landscape of great variety: the bare muir blooms with colourful flowers, pasture meets rocky outcrop, and verdant…

new paths

By: Kate Davies Designs August 16, 2017August 16, 2017

disability, Handywoman, stroke, walking, writingableism, Dee Heddon, disability, Handywoman, stroke, Sue Porter, the disabled walker, walking, Walking Interconnections, writing64 Comments

I’m currently working on a couple of chapters for my book. The first chapter looks at learning to walk (which, unless you’ve experienced injury or disability most of us will never engage in as an acquired skill) and the second chapter explores some thoughts I have about walking itself (one of my favourite activities, which…