Tag: textile history

  • worn

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    The best things in my wardrobe are made of wool. Some of these are ‘vintage’ items that have worn incredibly well. I thought I’d show you one of my favourites today. I picked up this hand-knitted cardigan second-hand. From its shape, patterns, buttons, and the kind of worsted- spun Shetland wool that was used to…

  • woolly thinking: part 2

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    (Mid- eighteenth-century glazed Norwich worsted wools: Bruxelles, Belles Illes, Martiniques, Blondines.) As we’ve seen throughout WOVEMBER, the way that textiles are named and sold can be misleading and difficult to understand. In a rush to make a chemical innovations integral to a brand, or to lay corporate claim to a particular spinning or weaving process,…

  • Woolly thinking: part 1

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    Wool snood at French Connection containing 0% wool and 100% Acrylic. We’ve had some WOVEMBER feedback suggesting that we are being overly dogmatic in our insistence that the word wool should pertain to sheep’s wool only. These comments are useful to read, and very interesting since they suggest how wide the application and understanding of…

  • smocks galore!

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    So, here is my surprise — the Warriston pattern is now published, and when you buy it you will also receive a copy of a new digital magazine, produced and edited by me. Since 2007, Textisle is the name I’d been using for a large academic project. It is too good a name to go…

  • pockets

    pockets

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    I have been knitting pockets. I am designing something which requires a pocket of a certain kind and I spent most of yesterday testing out several. By mid-afternoon, after creating a curious sampler composed of several different kinds of mini-pocket, I had a mild eureka moment, and devised what I reckon is the the perfect…

  • Christie Johnstone

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    This sweater is all about colour and pattern. I have already mentioned the unconscious influence of a blanket, but, in a conscious way at least, what I was inspired by were the shor’ goons (short gowns / blouses) that were worn by Newhaven fishwives. I’ve seen a couple of surviving late nineteenth-century examples, which are…

  • stitched up

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    Though I love the Gainsborough films, Tony Richardson’s Tom Jones and Michael Winterbottom’s A Cock and Bull Story, I am not generally a fan of contemporary cinematic takes on eighteenth- and nineteenth century literature. This is probably because of what I do: a generation of students who have grown up with the unshakeable idea that…

  • cable

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    We interrupt our regular proceedings with this cable. This is just to let readers of The Knitter know that I’ve a piece in the most recent issue of the magazine (no.13) — about the history and future of cable knitting. In the feature, I talk about Gladys Thompson, an old favourite inspiration of mine, and…

  • braid claith

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    Since I wrote that piece about the Yorkshire woollen trade for The Knitter a while ago, I’ve had broadcloth on my mind. Broadcloth is a traditionally woollen, and and quintessentially British fabric. As the woven wool trade developed through the Sixteenth- and Seventeenth Centuries, broadcloth, in its several grades, kinds, and colours was popularly produced…

  • tea and knitting

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    For many of us, tea and knitting go together like . . . well, like tea and knitting. Personally, I can think of no better beverage to accompany the activity of knitting than what Dr Johnson (a great tea drinker) would have referred to as a dish of fine bohea, (or in my case, Yorkshire).…

  • me news

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    Some of you may be interested to know that I’ve a feature in the new Rowan Magazine (no.46), which is out today. The piece is about British industrial textile history, and the past and future of two important mills — Cold Harbour, and New Lanark.* I really enjoyed writing this feature, as I’m sure you…

  • spun

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    (first handspun. Mock not.) I’ve been thinking about spinning since . . . well, since I had a go at it the other day. I took a lovely trip to Twist Fibrecraft with my knitting buddies, and the inevitable happened – – I returned home with a drop spindle and some satisfying packets of what…

  • maud

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    John Watson Gordon, James Hogg (1830). © National Galleries of Scotland. I’ve been working on a piece for Yarn Forward about tweed. In the course of my research, I’ve been reading a lot about the Maud: the shepherd’s plaid traditionally worn in the Scottish Borders. This is John Watson Gordon’s portrait of James Hogg, best…

  • bordado Madeira

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    Kate Davies Designs
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    Madeira has distinctive textile traditions. I had a vague sense of these from my grandma (who taught me to knit), who visited Portugal several times, and who owned several beautiful pieces of Madeiran table-linen. I particularly remember a very fine cloth, decorated with Richlieu-style cut work in pale brown against white. The Madeiran traditions of…