Kate Davies on Knitting Her Way Back to Health

Kate Davies is a knitwear designer you might have heard of before, who uses traditional Scottish patterns in her designs, but what you might not know is that she had a stroke at a young age and had to work hard to learn to knit again — not to mention all the normal regular stuff of daily life.

She had a stroke five years ago that was caused by an undiagnosed congenital heart defect, and spent six months in the hospital regaining function. She says people thought she was crazy when she said she was going to start knitting and designing patterns to sell, but now she’s sold patterns more than 40,000 times and has her own line of yarn.

Before the stroke she was a lecturer and had earned a PhD in 18th century history. She uses her knowledge of historic knitting patterns and her love of the Scottish landscape as inspiration for her designs.

Check out the full story at the Daily Record.

[Photo via Daily Record.]

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The other day I saw a post from Pinterest about trends for summer and it said one of them was “cultivating whimsy.”

Well, I don’t know where Pinterest has been all this time, but we’ve been cultivating whimsy here at Craft Gossip for a long time. I love sharing projects that are a little different, things that make you smile when you see them, and will make you smile when you knit them and wear them or use them.

Such it is with the Tutti Frutti tee knitting pattern from Bea Creative Knits.

This cute little baby tee is worked top down in the round with contiguous shoulder construction to shape the sleeve caps. There are short rows for the neckline and folded hems with picot edging at the hemline, neckline and edges of the sleeves.

All of this would be great on its own, but then there’s the addition of a super cute fruit icon, which is added with duplicate stitch. There are a lot of options, including strawberry, banana, orange, cherries, watermelon, lemon, blueberries, kiwi, peach, dragon fruit, apple and pear, so it’s likely you can add on your favorite fruit.

It is offered in eight sizes, to fit a bust measurement ranging from 28-30 inches (71-76 cm) to 56-58 inches (142-147 cm). The design is meant to be worn with around 6.3 inches/16 cm of negative ease, but you can choose the fit you prefer. There’s also optional bust and waist shaping included in the pattern if you want to make it even curvier.

This is considered an advanced beginner or intermediate project because of all the skills involved, but it’s sure to be a lot of fun even if some of these techniques are new to you.

Grab a copy of the pattern for yourself form Bea Creative Knits on Etsy.

[Photo: Bea Creative Knits]

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