Award-winning Scottish publishing and design
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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I’ve been reading a lot of books while researching People Make Glasgow, and one of my favourite recent reads is Ian R Mitchell’s This City Now (reissued as Walking through Glasgow’s Industrial Past in 2015) which offers a brilliant walker’s guide to the city’s industrial history. The book mentions one of Mitchell’s peripatetic-literary Glasgow forbears…
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It has been a very wet and cool July. As our Spring was unusually dry and warm, the garden has definitely appreciated the wet weather, and apart from having to wear the dreaded rain pants on my long daily walks, I’ve rather enjoyed it too. Certainly there is something rather jolly about hearing the rain…
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As part of my research for the introduction to our People Make Glasgow book, I’ve been doing some highly enjoyable work poking about the city’s eighteenth and nineteenth-century post office directories, which provide intriguing lists of Glasgow’s merchants, manufacturing and retail businesses (much like the yellow pages). Looking at these directories across a century or…
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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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I’m in full-on, heads down, focused writing mode right now, completing our People Make Glasgow book. Someone sent me an email a couple of days ago asking about my approach to writing, and it occurred to me just how much I love to write, and that my approach to it was probably pretty simple –…
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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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I’ve been thinking about how I might incorporate local found materials into the pieces I’m making for my Crafting Futures collaboration with Pilar. So, for the past couple of months, I have been picking up the feathers I come across on my daily walks. I’ve not done anything special when gathering these feathers – I’ve…
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I’m currently working hard on our People Make Glasgow book, which approaches its final stages (exciting!) and am finding the different stories the book covers about the city’s making and producing communities really inspiring, thought provoking, and often moving. As well as creative enterprises of all sizes, in fields from woodworking to whisky, the book…
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Over the past few weeks, I’ve been really struck by how colourful the oak trees I see on my morning walks are at this time of year, with their wild orangey-red foliage so different to the surrounding trees heavy green. So here’s a poem I wrote in my head about those oaks this morning. The…
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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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It has taken a while for me to make my peace with magpies. For a long time, as a child, youth, and young adult, they were a creature I profoundly disliked. The reason for this was pretty simple: a magpie killed my tortoise, my only childhood pet, named Werner. So I came to regard magpies…
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