Award-winning Scottish publishing and design
Good morning and happy Friday everyone! Today we are feeling particularly pleased because Ardnamurchan is back in stock! And with stock of this lovely tealy-green shade available, we can now release this new summery design of which I’m really very fond – Treit. Treit is a simple tee with a lace yoke, knitted from the…
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A shawl for midsummer! A shawl red as a June strawberry, light as an evening breeze! The name of the pattern is Beamer Now, in many parts of Scotland, Beamer is not a particular brand of car, but a word for blushing. To “take a beamer” means to blush – most usually with embarassment –…
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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…
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Hello! After some welcome warm weather, there’s been an unusually cold snap over the past few days in Scotland. Though we’ve not seen much of the snow and hail flurries that have been bothering friends further north, the air has turned very cold, we’ve put off planting out our broccoli, and have had to protect…
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Good morning! Friday is project reveal day – or in this case, outfit reveal day. Do you remember St Catherines – the shrug-style garter-stitch cardigan that’s included in my Shore collection? I originally designed this piece in a solid colour, which I wore, and rather liked, but then Mel knit up a bruce and birkin…
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One of my favourite things about designing is that, after completing my work on a pattern, I get to see it afresh through the eyes of other knitters who gravitate to different colourways. I love these changes in perspective and often I see a design quite differently when a creative knitter simply reverses the shade…
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Hello! Friday is project reveal day, and up today is a light and simple knit I’m really enjoying wearing at the moment – The Observatory. I originally created this design for our West Highland Way book, building the pattern around one of my all-time favourite Shetland lace edgings. This edging has a wonderful, intuitive rhythm,…
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Good morning, and happy Friday, everyone. Thanks so much for your comments on yesterday’s post. I’d especially like to thank Vivienne Richmond, who kindly shared the booklet that accompanies the exhibition she curated about the darning and needlework collections of Whitelands College. Like many samplers, those in Vivienne’s exhibition originate in the classroom – eighteenth-…
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Good morning! Something new to show to you today – our latest shade of Milarrochy Tweed. Dyed to a beautifully saturated hue of blue-y green, this shade is enlivened by tweedy twists and flecks of pale pink and paler green. It’s a deep, bold colour – almost the opposite of the spectrum from our other…
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Morning, everyone! Today I’m introducing a new hat, and a new shade of Milarrochy Tweed. First, the hat, which, just like the yoke of my Land o’ Cakes cardigan, is worked in variations of 2×2 corrugated rib and which, just like that pattern, I designed on the hoof, experimenting with shade combinations and rhythms in…
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I want to thank everyone for your comments on yesterday’s post. Reading them, I was struck very strongly by the feeling of our all facing exactly the same pressing issue in our disparate regions in the world – an unusual sense of connection, but not one to be ignored. Today’s is an ‘announcement’ kind of…
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This is a very cheerful sweater And to accompany it, I’m wearing the most cheering pair of shoes I own. . . Yes, even someone with a dropped foot and appalling balance can gad about in these ridiculous ruby slippers! Back to the sweater, whose name is Coofle: an old Scots word for a puzzle,…
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Have you been following Claudia’s pattern reveals from Colour Moves on Ravelry and her blog? The designs shown in recent days are some of my favourites from the collection, and include: Gradient Mesh – a fabulous beanie-and-gauntlet set featuring a wash of colour across a neutral background . . . Velino – a simple mitt-and-slouch…
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Good morning everyone, I hope you are all doing well and looking after yourselves and each other. We are all fine here at KDD: indeed, all of us feel very fortunate that our circumstances are such that we can continue our operation relatively uninterrupted, work from home, and have the capacity to help our families…
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The past few weeks have seen some rather intense creative activity, as Tom and I prepare for an exciting weekend in Argyll. On Friday, Tom will be opening an exhibition of his new work at the Tighnabruaich gallery, Light by the Sea. As well as his beautiful photographic seascapes, each of which evokes the distinctive…
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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…
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