Award-winning Scottish publishing and design
A Bold Beginner Knits tutorial for the Upstream pullover When you are knitting your first sweater an instruction to “join body and sleeves into yoke” might appear especially bamboozling. You have, on your needles, one body and two sleeves. How on earth do you combine these three separate tubes so that they magically become one…
Read More
Hello! Kate here. It’s time for another release from the Bold Beginner Knits collection – the Upstream pullover. Seamless yoked pullovers are a great first sweater project for a beginner knitter to tackle, and I knew I wanted to include one in this collection. And loving the muted marl-y palette of Àrd-Thìr, I was keen…
Read More
Kate has designed a series of patterns with me, as a bold beginner knitter, in mind. I don’t think I had ever considered myself bold…
Read More
A few months ago, when Jane decided to learn to knit, I thought it might be nice to design a few things just for her. Simple patterns aimed at beginner knitters are sometimes not terribly exciting, either in the making or the wearing, so I set myself the challenge of designing some simple patterns that…
Read More
I have been thinking a lot over the past week about the difficulties of talking about the mental health “benefits” of a craft like knitting. There’s a lot of really interesting research about crafts and mental health about right now, but I often have problems with the way such research is publicly communicated or presented.…
Read More
If there’s one thing I’ve had time for over the past few months, it is my knitting. I think one has to be very, very careful when talking about knitting and mental health, or discussing craft activities in association with terms like “mindfulness”: mental illnesses are varied and complex, and craft is not, in any…
Read More
Recently Kate suggested that for my next project I could have a go at her iconic Owls sweater pattern. Now, as you will know if you have been following my learn to knit journey, it had only been three months since I had picked up the needles…
Read More
My circular needles have arrived!
The learn to knit book gives an introduction to knitting in the round, explaining that this technique is effectively making a spiral to form a tube of knitting, rather than seaming flat pieces of fabric together.
I seem to have had a breakthrough with being able to read my knitting during this project. Maybe down to the chunky yarn, meaning the stitches are easier to see.
Read More
Here we go. My first ever knit project and first time reading a pattern – fingerless mitts.
Read More
You’re proudly displaying your beautiful finished object to the world when a friend, swooning over your latest make, laments – “oh this is stunning, I wish I could knit”. How often do you hear that refrain? We hear this many times a week, and not just online.Here on the blog we’ll document the progress of one such “I wish I could knitter”
Read More
We are five weeks in to the Knitting Season Club – a three month exploration of creative making (and handknit design), following a format that’s a little different to previous clubs, with weekly essays and creative assignments as well as the usual collection of new patterns. These essays have been one of the most enjoyable…
Read More