Download a PDF version here. - Rowan

01 02Kate DaviesKate Davies’s designs celebrate the colours and patterns of the scenery that surrounds her and her recentcollection was inspired by the history and landscape of the Shetland Islands.We met up with Kate in Edinburghto hear her thoughts on craft, inspiration, and why knitting a sweater is just like writing a poem.I suppose I’ve had a rather unconventional route into designing. I grew upin Lancashire and was taught to knit by my grandma and to sew by mymum. I think much of my aptitude for designing comes from thesewomen, who taught me to be resourceful and adaptable as well as to trustmy creative instincts. My grandma kitted out the whole family in herfavourite knitting patterns from Woman’s Weekly, and as a teenager, Ienjoyed spending Friday nights with my mum at local jumble sales, pickingup clothes which were later divided up and added to the mending pile formodification. I wasn’t so keen on stitching up my own school clothes, butI really enjoyed these jumble-sale customisations, which made me thinkabout how dressing oneself is always to some degree a creative act, andbegan a long-standing obsession with fashion and textiles.When I left home, I took a different professional route, and after threeUniversity degrees, became an academic, researching and teachingEighteenth Century History and Literature at the University of Sheffield,52