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This blog has been here since 2007, when (under the moniker “needled”) it began as a place for Kate to enthuse about her knitting. After her stroke in 2010, the blog then became an important place for Kate’s writing about recovery, as well as a diary of sorts, recording shifting thinking, activities both enjoyable and challenging, and many different kinds of creativity. A few years later, Tom joined Kate in her creative work, and began exploring his own artistic and photographic practice here, enriching the blog with beautiful images. For more than 15 years, then, this online space has documented the growth and evolution of KDD from its one-woman beginnings to the vibrant and productive small company Tom and Kate manage together today. The blog has always been at the heart of what we do, and we enjoy the fact that it remains a place where we share our passions and explore ideas in long-form, ad-hoc, experimental, and provisional ways that tend not to be accommodated by social media platforms. With an archive of many thousands of posts, there’s an awful lot of material here, exploring many different topics, so if you are looking for something specific, we’ve created some useful sections to help you explore what interests you. You can also use the text search box (top right) to find posts about different subjects.

KDD shop

Find our books, prints, patterns, yarns and knitwear in the KDD shop

Tutorials

Need help with your knitting? We’ve a dedicated tutorial section, with step-by-step instructions for everything from reading a lace chart to cutting your first steek.

Conversation pieces

We love chatting with our creative friends! In this area of the blog, you’ll find profiles of, interviews with, and guest posts by fellow designers, musicians, artists and makers.

Making / art

We’ve set aside this area of the blog for exploring our different projects and work in progress from book-binding and mask-making to creative play and publishing.

Historical excursions

Kate is a historian by training, and over the years has written many pieces exploring topics that range from Scotland’s contested colonial legacies to the history of socks and stockings, and 18th century balloon-o-mania. Explore this area of the blog to find out more.

Photography

This blog is built around Tom’s beautiful photography! You can enjoy his images of Scotland’s landscape all over this blog, and find out more about his creative practice on the Ootlier website.

Favourite places

We love Scotland’s great outdoors! In this section, we’ve selected some of our favourite spots (and walks).

Dogologue

We share our home with three messy labradors who like to write the occasional blog post. What’s that? You don’t think dogs can write? O ye of little faith.

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Our newsletter

Our newsletter (sent monthly) provides a regular digest of all our new projects, product releases and work in progress – with special offers for subscribers. There’s 10% off your first order, and you can sign up here.