10 Years in the Making
“Time, for a hand knitter, accrues, attenuates, shifts gradually, moving on in its own folds and gathers rather than straight lines.” Kate Davies thoughtfully reflects on a decade in design in her anniversary collection of eighteen beautiful patterns. Mixing innovative brand-new work like Sterntaucher and Fleckit with classic re-releases such as Carbeth and Paper Dolls, all patterns are written in Kate’s signature clear style across an inclusive size range. There are twelve different pullovers and cardigans to choose from, including simple-to-knit styles such as the Evendoon pullover and cardigan alongside the enjoyable cable challenges posed by Wryit or Tree Tram Tro. Yet Kate’s hallmark is perhaps her work with colour, and this collection abounds with bold designs of many hues, including yoke sweaters, a cosy hoody, mitts, cowl, hats and slippers, and the graphic Sterrie blanket with its simple, contemporary feel.
*18 patterns
*4 classic re-releases (Owls, Paper Dolls, Carbeth and Carbeth Cardigan)
*14 brand new designs
*inclusive size range
Yokes
In this enduring classic, now in its fourth edition, Kate unravels the tale of one of the 20th Century’s most distinctive sweater styles - the circular yoke. From Shetland and Iceland to Canada and Sweden, this book's patterns, essays and conversations take you on a journey around the North Atlantic, exploring the yoke’s intriguing and often surprising regional narratives.
A garment with unexpected national and political resonances; an important marker of personal and cultural identity; a fashionable barometer of trends and technical transformations from the 1920s to today, yokes have connected the lives and livelihoods of many different women. In this book you’ll hear the voices of those women, from designers to artists, from knitters to entrepreneurs. You will read about Elizabeth Zimmermann’s seamless innovations, learn more of Kerstin Olsson’s knitterly aesthetics, and discover the fascinating influence of the Greenlandic nuilarmiut.
The essays and conversations are accompanied by a collection of eleven signature yoke patterns. Featuring a wide range of design elements from colourwork and cables to beads and texture, Kate has created a yoke for every knitter.
So take up your needles, open up this book, and discover the story of the sweater that changed the shape of modern knitting!
Sark
Sark (n) a simple shirt or chemise
Sark (v) to clothe, to provide with clothing
Sark (n) the underlying structure of a roof or building
Sark (v) to line or underpin
In Scots, a sark is an essential layer, the foundation of any outfit. In her new collection, Kate Davies has created twelve foundational designs with structure and simplicity at their heart. Featuring a technique of twisting stitches that produces fabric with a beautifully textured and embossed appearance, each pattern explores the creative potential of the twisted stitch in pieces that are engaging to knit and easy to wear. There’s a comfortable oversized gansey, a smart cardigan with panels and puffed sleeves, a pair of yoke sweaters, a cosy wrap, and an appealing range of quick-to-knit one-skein accessories, all designed with the clear instructions and clean finishing details that are hallmarks of Kate’s work. The book also includes a collection of thought-provoking monochrome images, as Tom explores ideas of pattern and structure in the natural world and built environment. A celebration of collaborative, creative making, Sark is a book as beautiful as it is useful.
12 patterns (6 garments, 6 accessories) for DK / sportweight yarn. Introduction by Kate Davies plus interview with Norah Gaughan.
The Book of Haps
This book brings together a collection of beautiful haps from: Kate Davies, Jen Arnall-Culliford and a host of renowned designers. A hap is a Scottish dialect word for a simple shawl or wrap. Haps have a particular association with the Shetland islands, where, for more than a century, they were knitted for everyday wear as well as for sale.
Combining textile history with contemporary design, this book explores the story of the hap through five beautifully illustrated essays, and thirteen stunning patterns. From Nevada and Finland to Reykjavik, and Burra Isle, the patterns in these pages are as distinctive and varied as their designers' locales.
Though haps are, by definition, functional, wearable textiles, you'll find they can also be elegant and fascinating, graphic and abstract. Whatever your knitterly interests, you'll find the Book of Haps an endless source of inspiration and a canvas for your creativity.
Bold Beginner Knits
Can you:
*Cast on / bind off
*Knit / purl
*Increase / decrease
*Knit back and forth / knit in the round
With these basic skills under your knitterly belt, you’ll be able to make each one of the six bold pieces in this collection:
*A colourful modular blanket
*A top-down cardigan
*A bottom-up yoke pullover
*A garment knitted from side-to-side
*A lace-patterned triangular shawl
*A beanie hat (which demonstrates the ease and usefulness of swatching in the round)
Kate Davies was inspired to create Bold Beginner Knits for friend and bold beginner knitter, Jane Hunter. Each pattern was specifically created by Kate to introduce Jane to useful new techniques and different construction methods by knitting interesting designs that in no sense resemble beginner pieces. Unfamiliar techniques are introduced with links to relevant video tutorials, and from the straightforward pattern-writing style to the visual page layout, every element of Bold Beginner Knits is designed to be clear and easy to follow.
Whatever kind of knitter you are, you’ll love making and wearing these six appealing designs.
Bluestockings
This beautiful book - co-edited by Kate Davies and Nicole Pohl - brings together a celebration of the group of eighteenth-century learned women known as the Bluestockings, with a wide-ranging exploration of sock and stocking knitting.
The book’s first section features different perspectives on the history of socks and stockings, from expert contributors like Susan North (curator of eighteenth-century fashion at the V&A) and Sonja Bargielowska (of John Arbon worsted spinners). In the book’s second section, essays about creative eighteenth-century women such as Mary Delany and Phillis Wheatley Peters are accompanied by contemporary toe-up patterns for socks and stockings. Among our Bluestocking-inspired designs you’ll find openwork and texture, stripes, chevrons, stranded colourwork, and a go-to sock and stocking recipe named for talented eighteenth-century classicist (and knitter) Elizabeth Carter. Setting top tips about knitting toe-up socks alongside an exploration of historic dyestuffs, and bringing groundbreaking women writers together with accessible, wearable design, this lavishly illustrated volume offers an exciting in-the-round combination of material history, contemporary making, and early feminism.
Handy Woman
Paralysed by a stroke at the age of 36, Kate Davies' world turned upside-down. Forced to change direction, Kate took a radical new creative path. Handywoman tells this story. This is not a book about Kate's triumph over adversity. Rather, it is her account of the ordinary activities and everyday objects that stroke and disability made her see differently. From braiding hair for the first time to learning how to knit again; from the lessons of a working-class creative childhood to the support of the contemporary craft community; from the transformative effects of good design to developing a new identity as a disabled walker; in this engaging series of essays, Kate describes how the experience of brain injury allowed her to build a new kind of handmade life. Part memoir, part personal celebration of the power of making, in Handywoman Kate reclaims disability as in itself a form of practical creativity.
Kate Davies is an award-winning knitwear designer and author writing on many topics from disability and design to textile history and women’s history. She’s published eight books about hand-knitting, lives on the edge of the Scottish Highlands and is inspired by her local landscape every day.
Warm Hands
When Jeanette Sloan and Kate Davies got together to develop a new design collection the results were sure to be colourful and creative. From their line-up of 15 original patterns, you might choose to knit mismatched mitts in bold two-tone intarsia or a dramatic pair of elbow-length cabled gauntlets. From warm mittens to delicate wristlets, from fingerless to full gloves, Jeanette and Kate’s design selection includes a wide variety of shades and styles, while among the book’s many different takes on texture, lace and colourwork, you’ll be sure to find your favourite kind of knitting, or interesting new techniques to explore. Featuring patterns from globally-renowned knitting names alongside the work of talented new faces, this innovative collection brings the work of designers around the world together with fresh ideas, ready needles—and warm hands.
