Kate Davies Designs » textiles

the shade that soaks up meaning

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2023/01/06/magenta-matters/

a hand-knitted smock for autumn

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2022/09/25/smookie/

how our attitudes to colour are bound up with the stories we tell ourselves

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2022/08/06/all-dressed-in-yellow/

Hand-knitting and hand-weaving speak eloquently to one another in the beautiful work of Janet Bowen

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2022/07/27/monks-belt-hat/

what might a pair of seventeenth-century stockings say about the body that once wore them?

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2021/07/07/sock-of-the-week-no-7/

Introducing talented Scottish-Pakistani weaver, Mariam Syed

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2021/05/30/mariam-syed/

We celebrate the new edition of Wheesht with this essay exploring the creative work of mending and Celia Pym's inspiring practice

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2021/03/14/mend/

Do you dream in textiles?

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2021/02/14/the-fabric-of-memory/

Kate talks to Flora Collingwood-Norris about mending, Scottish islands, and how colour makes you feel

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2021/02/06/make-mend-collingwood-norris/

Simply because of where we live, this year has, I think, not been tough as it has proved for so many other people. I feel enormously grateful to be able to just step outside and go for a walk in ...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2020/11/17/wax-and-water/

There is no getting away from the fact that, whatever business you are in, this year has been a very weird one. Having to change the nature and direction of what you are doing – often very rapi...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2020/10/18/a-chat-with-misa-hay/

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 h...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2020/05/13/float-in-the-wind-flicker-in-the-breeze/

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 ...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2020/04/24/cherry-cheer/

Yesterday afternoon I took a break from grading a cardigan (a task that makes my eyes spin round) and spent a happy hour (as I often do) poking about the Rijksmuseum – which is one of those won...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2020/04/23/mending-inspiration/

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,...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2020/04/04/a-coat-for-falling/

When you were a kid, did you wear your mittens and gloves on bands or strings threaded through your coat sleeves to keep them safe? I did, and have very vivid recollections of disliking the pract...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2020/02/20/mittens-for-the-absent-minded/

In the spring of 2018, after a hard winter in which I’d been struggling with my depression, I spent some time in Berneray and North Uist. You can get a sense of how much I immediately loved the...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2019/09/28/udal/

I’m so pleased to be able to introduce you to Duntreath! After we successfully launched our lambswool snoods last year, I really wanted to develop a line of garments. Having researched and writ...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2018/09/21/duntreath/

One thing you can say about knitting: it really makes you think about the many different processes that producing textiles involve. For example, prior to becoming an obsessive knitter, I had neve...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2017/09/18/making-stuff-at-lockies/

Over the years I’ve gathered a small collection of knitting ephemera. This includes a few different styles of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century sticks, wisps and sheaths (used throughout B...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2017/08/28/jenny-jones/

I’ve recently been writing about teaching my left hand to work again following my stroke. Because of this, I’ve been thinking very carefully about braiding hair, and knitting socks, about how...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2017/04/24/working-hands/

One of the best things about working in the field of hand-knit design is that it really is an industry which abounds with good eggs. In my view, two of the very best eggs around are Gudrun Johnst...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2016/12/05/gudrun-johnston-mary-jane-mucklestone/

Shetland abounds with wonderful creative spaces, but surely one of the most inspiring has to be the charity that Andy Ross has established, nurtured, and developed in Yell. From its beginnings as...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2016/12/01/globalyell-shetland-tweed-company/

If you’ve read my introduction to The Book of Haps then you’ll already have come across Helen Robertson – a Shetland artist and craftswoman whose work I deeply admire. Working with silver w...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2016/11/29/helen-robertson/

So this is the new project we are working on which has (until today) been very much under wraps! It has been on our minds for some time now for Tom to pursue a project exploring the documentary p...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2016/08/25/lives-in-oo/

A few weeks ago, I visited the home of the UK Knitting and Crochet Guild – a fantastic organisation that exists to support and promote the crafts of knitting and crochet. The KCG is supported e...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2016/05/06/thankyou-kcg/

As we have discovered over the past few months, there is an awful lot to think about when designing and manufacturing a new yarn for hand knitting! There are many stages to consider, and many dec...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2015/08/31/at-haworth-scouring/

Hello! Hope you have had a nice weekend! On Saturday Mel and I took a wee trip to Aberdeen, to visit Scottesque. You may remember that I’ve mentioned Scottesque before (in connection with the m...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2015/05/18/at-scottesque/

You all know of my Sonia Delaunay obsession, and I was extremely excited to attend the opening of the retrospective of her work at Tate Modern last week. Box, (1913) Delaunay crossed disciplinary...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2015/04/19/delaunay-retrospective/

Sonia Delaunay Rythme (1938) I don’t know about you, but I am extremely excited about Tate Modern’s Sonia Delaunay retrospective, which opens in a couple of months. I’ve long had a thing fo...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2015/02/09/sonia-delaunay-the-dress-of-the-future/

One of the issues I’ve found myself thinking about an awful lot while writing my book is how knitwear “traditions” are never completely national or regional in origin, but are always interw...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2014/10/14/knitwear-and-cultural-relativism/

On Sunday I finally got to see the Great Tapestry of Scotland. I was completely blown away by the vision of Alistair Moffat (who produced the tapestry’s historical content and context), Andrew ...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2014/06/11/great-tapestry-of-scotland-1-23/

While I was away in Lancashire I popped over to Gawthorpe to see preparations for the new season’s exhibitions. Excitingly for me, my Richard the Roundhead Tam is included, – the first time m...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2014/03/10/richard-the-roundhead-in-situ/

I have a terrible cold. When one is sniffling and snuffling and generally feeling lousy, there’s nothing more comforting than a nice handkerchief, of which, it occurred to me this morning, I po...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2014/02/18/handkerchiefs/

Writing of the worn and mended Fair Isle sweater that Shetland knitter, Doris Hunter created for her fiancé, Ralph Patterson, who spent four years in a Japanese POW camp during the Second World ...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2014/01/29/shetland-textiles-800-bc-to-the-present/

I’m working on my Gawthorpe design. Here’s what I’ve been thinking about. Charles Sillem Lidderdale, The Fern Gatherer (1877) Fern-decorated Mauchlinware Wardian Case Jane Hoodless “Pteri...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2013/10/24/pteridomania/

Various things have been prompting me to think a lot recently about the role that sewing and knitting and other handmade things can play in the shape of ones life. Like many crafty folk in the UK...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2013/05/03/handmade-childhood/

I so enjoyed your translations and comments on this post, that I thought I’d continue the First World War theme with some of my favourite items in my postcard collection. Known to collectors ge...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2013/04/09/a-kiss-from-france/

Well, I had a fantastic time in Shetland. As I was on my own, I stayed in Lerwick. I really enjoyed meeting up with Shetland friends old and new, and pottering about toon. But I was there to work...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2013/02/18/thinking-time/

Bruce and I took a few hours off today, and spent the morning drinking tea and eating scones with our friend Sarah. Sarah has recently moved to Edinburgh from Shetland, and it was the first time ...

https://katedaviesdesigns.com/2012/11/08/at-reform-lane/