Tag: inspiration

  • designing & publishing: part 3

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    From Folly Cove by Julia Farwell Clay and Celtic Cable Shawls by Lucy Hague Today I’m looking at another couple of recently-published books, from two very different independent designers, who both took completely different routes to publication. What these two books share, however, is an intelligent engagement with two specific aesthetic contexts, as both were…

  • Puffin Post

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    One of the many things that makes me very happy as a designer is seeing different interpretations of a sweater I’ve created. I often learn a lot from the modifications knitters make to my patterns, and sometimes a simple change of shade can make a design look like a completely different garment. The Puffin sweater…

  • Gawthorpe, encore

    Gawthorpe, encore

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    In between developing kits and other designs, I’ve been working on my Gawthorpe project (which you may remember is a commission to produce a pattern inspired by the wonderful textile collections of Rachel Kay Shuttleworth). The piece on which I’ve decided to base my design is a large coverlet, featuring deep teal-coloured woollen embroidery on…

  • Pteridomania

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    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 “Pteridomania Contained” (©Jane Hoodless, 2012) Victorian Fern-fashion Gucci, A/W 2013 For more, see Sarah Whittingham, Fern Fever: The Story of Pteridomania (2012)

  • a day at Gawthorpe

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    Some days I wake up and I feel massively, incredibly lucky to have somehow landed here, in this curious new life, as a designer of hand-knits. Last Thursday was one of those days. Because I had been invited — along with Debbie Bliss , Jane Ellison, Claire Montgomerie, and Emma Varnam — to visit Gawthorpe…

  • Sontag

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    I have a design published in the new Rowan Magazine! It is a simple triangular shawl or “Sontag” knit up in three tasty shades of Rowan Fine Tweed. (shades Wensley, Bedale, and Dent) The garment is named after Henriette Sontag — a German singer, who brought this kind of shallow, front-crossing shawl to the attention…

  • Eno

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    I have been thinking about Brian Eno since a half-remembered lyric led Tom and I to listen again to our Roxy Music albums this weekend. Genius! This morning I rediscovered these photographs of Eno in some incredible knitwear and was reminded of his fabulously singular sartorial style. “We got the usual strange looks in airports,”…

  • Friday inspiration

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    From Norway, Sweden and Estonia

  • Islay inspiration

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    Kate Davies Designs
    in

    I love camping: I suppose there is just something about taking the time to simply be in the outdoors that allows the world to insinuate itself upon you in the most pleasing way. And I find Islay a particularly inspiring landscape. I like to potter about just looking at stuff, and always come home with…