feminism – KDD & Co

Aoife Mc Lysaght

Introducing wise and generous Aoife Mc Lysaght

sock of the week no.3

Celebrating the world’s first sock knitting book, and its bluestocking author

a chat with Nicole Pohl

Nicole tells us more about her work on the women of the Bluestocking circle

two new projects

News about Inkling, and The Bluestocking Club

inspiring women

By: KDD March 7, 2021March 21, 2021

feminism, womenfeminism, inspiring projects, International Women's Day, knitting, women14 Comments

Celebrating brilliant knitters around the world for international women’s day

Float in the wind, flicker in the breeze

By: Michelle May 13, 2020May 13, 2020

art, design, feminism, History, textiles, womenAnn Macbeth, banners, design, feminism, History, making, Mary Lowndes, suffrage, textiles, women's history14 Comments

Hello! It’s Michelle here. Today I’d like to share some words and images about suffrage spectacle and visual identity, a topic that recently came back to my mind through Kate’s writing in her Wheesht essay ‘Elevate’ on Ann Macbeth’s collaborative suffrage quilt. Anne Macbeth’s suffrage quilt as a suffrage banner. © Museum of London The…

Women Who Would Not Sit Still

By: Michelle April 26, 2020April 26, 2020

feminism, History, womenElsie Inglis, field hospitals, first world war, History, Lilian Lenton, Scottish Women's Hospitals, serbia, suffrage, suffragists, SWH, women, women's history32 Comments

The Five Sisters window in York Minster is dedicated to all 1,513 women of the British Empire who lost their lives serving in the First World War. The existing 13th century window was restored and rededicated with funds raised by public appeal, and unveiled on 24 June 1925. Image: © John Scurr (WMR-30648), Imperial War…

In search of Miss Lenton

By: KDD April 14, 2020April 14, 2020

feminism, Politics, women, writingfeminism, Lilian Lenton, Michelle Payne, suffrage, women's history, women's writing, writing26 Comments

(1. Suffragette, chained to railings.) What a feast of images and words today! As you know, I’m a writer with a background in archival research and women’s history, and today I’ve persuaded fellow writer, and friend of KDD, Michelle Payne, to share some of her own historical research about the British women’s suffrage movement. I’m…

Omnia Feminae Aequissimae

You may remember that last year at KDD, we celebrated International Women’s Day by designing and knitting a commemorative blanket together with our good friend, Felicity Ford. Celebrating 30 diverse creative women, our blanket was created with the central aim of using our crafty skills to educate each other about the many different ways in…

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, Felicity Ford, felix ford, International Women's Day, knitting, square share31 Comments

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…

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…

Collective journaling

By: KDD December 23, 2018May 28, 2019

feminism, writinggirls, journaling, women, writing65 Comments

As we approach the start of Knitting Season, I thought I’d write a few posts about how I use (and have used) journals. I imagine many of us think about journals as deeply personal spaces, and yet my most formative experience of journal keeping was collective and not individual. (Because this story belongs to others…

grey: not pregnant

By: KDD August 5, 2018August 5, 2018

colour, disability, feminism, knittingchildlessness, children, disability, feminism, fertility, grey hair, hair, knitting, Milarrochy Tweed, stroke, women436 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…

Strathendrick (and a personal note about modelling)

By: KDD 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…

Ottar (hap)

By: KDD May 19, 2017March 5, 2018

design, feminism, Kate Davies Designs, kits, knittingauld shell, book of haps, design, garter stitch, hap, haps, Kate Davies, ottar, Ottar hap Buachaille, Shetland knitting35 Comments

I have been so inspired by Ottar (see yesterday’s post) that I decided to name my latest design for her – the Ottar hap. This is a hap I’ve had a notion to knit since I started working on The Book of Haps about eighteen months ago. As I researched Shetland hap construction, I became…

Ottar

Working on a book can be full of surprises. I did not think, when I set out to write a chapter about tools and objects and the way my attitude to the material world changed after my stroke, that I would end up being inspired by an amazing feminist anarcho-syndicalist . . . but weirdly…