Work, Wheels and Wool!

Hello there, what was that? Where have I been hiding all these months?!

Well, there has been work which has been greedily taking up my monday-friday,

One wall of my office there, with some ace 70s knitted fabrics we found when clearing out in the Summer, that place is full of old treasures!!!

Then roller derby, that's the wheels which I just can't get enough of....this is me jamming at the Sheffield Steel Rollergirls' Crucibelles bout against Rainy City's B team, tough but FUN!!!

....and of course in amongst that, whenever I get a chance, there is Knit and Destroy, which of course is the wool!!! On this front I have mostly been fulfilling customer orders, and this fella is always popular in the winter months...
That was possibly the briefest round up of 3 months in the history of ever!!! And that's all from me for now,

See you next year! KD x x x

French knitters...

I like france and knitting, and you know what I really like...French knitters!!! Also known as knitting nancies, spool knitters, tricotins and many more names worldwide. These simple wooden dolls that allow you to knit a continuous tube strike a chord in many people's childhood memories. I really like them and when an exhibition opportunity came up with the brief of 'tradition and technology' I knew I wanted to do something with these knitting nancies.


Armed with lots of images of various knitting nancies, a knitting machine, some wool and some (techno) thermoform yarn I began on my 'knitted nancies', there was a lot of trial and error but I finally got the art of machine knitting with wool along with and very springy plasticy yarn down to a T. Heat setting the yarns around objects to give them the shape you see below was also a challenge, and I am happy with the end result!


Another knitting nancy related project that I am super-happy with is the tattoo I got from the lovely Sunny Buick. Here I am post tattoo in Sunny's studio in Paris!

This is my only knitting related tattoo (so far, he hee) and I am really happy with it. The word underneath is 'tricote' french for knit.

If you like knitting nancies and could look at pictures of them all day, check out this blog, dedicated too spool knitting, it's great!

State of Craft

Hello there,

It has been a while, but I have some exciting news...Knit and Destroy is going to be featured in an awesome new craft book! At the beginning of the year, the lovely Victoria Woodcock (the lady behind Making Stuff and the UK BUST craftaculars) contacted me about contributing to a new craft book her and her friend Ziggy were putting together. This would involve me creating a hand-knit pattern for them..only the exact thing that I had at the top of my to-do list this year, and this gave me the kick up the bum I needed to do it. Lots of maths, lots of knitting and a bit of writing later I had the pattern finished! You can see the paintbrush scarf on the front of the book here...

This book is full of lots of great projects from today's hottest crafters, not least Seleena Laverne Daye, artist and co-writer of Sugar Paper Zine, this lady can do some amazing things with felt...watch this space!!!

The book is out in October, you can pre-order it here. The perfect christmas gift for any crafter!

Yorkshire Sculpture Park...

The Yorkshire Sculpture Park is a lovely place for a day out, there's so much to see and beautiful grounds to just have a walk around in if you've looked at art for a bit too long! I went last week and despite the pouring rain and gale force winds had a lovely time as always...

There were some good exhibitions on but the things that caught my eye were in the gift shop, typical I know but it just re-inforces my theory that 'the gift shop is a major highlight of any day-trip' .

The first things that I gravitated towards were these lovely framed heads by Victoria Whincup, a mixture of cute girl and deer... drwaing and textiles...I'm instantly in love!

Click the photo to see more of Victoria's work in her shop!

Wandering aimlessly round the shop, past the mounds of Rob Ryan stuff, some yellow and pink caught my eye...upon closer inspection it's a beautifully detailed image with mushrooms, woodland and a fantastic creature. I instantly thought 'wonderland' and picked it up, the image is by NY based illustrator and artist Aya Kakeda. She not only draws but also does some really sweet work with a needle and thread, click the picture to check out her website.

Hope you like these ladies' work as much as I do, if you get a chance to go to YSP I highly recoomend it...but you might want to wait 'til October as there will be an exhibiton by Manchester based artist Rachel Goodyear whose work is amazing and like nothing else out there!

Kitten...Karavaning...Krafting...not so much Knitting!!!

Things I've been up to while I've not been doing any blogging..

KRAFTING...we finished another amaazing (I know, I would say that, but it is a particularly excellent issue) issue of the craftastic Sugar Paper Zine. There's lots of summery-type things to make and do including making cordial, sewing yourself a pair of shorts and 'fun with trees'...

Click the cover (pained by our artist pal Alison Forde) to go to the Sugar Paper shop where you can buy it!!!

KARAVANING...it was my best pal's birthday at the beginning of May and we thought it would be good to get all our best pals together and go away somewhere to celebrate! We settled on Wales and after much searching and failing to find a holiday cottage that would take a group...I stumbled upon a caravan park which turned out to be a real gem. From this idyllic woodland setting we ventured on a steam train to the Beautiful Portmeirion.

KITTEN...on my return from this weekend away, our friends brought round a beautiful 8 week old black kitten, now known as Sirius Black. Anyone who has ever had a kitten can appreciate how very difficult it is to do anything with such a cute, cheeky new friend in the house!

He is now curled up asleep on my lap allowing me to write this fantastically delayed blog post!

Saturday..what a day...

Saturday saw another excellent Craft Candy fair in Sheffield, and for those of you who couldn't make it, here's what it was like... This was the first time I had done one of their spring fairs and I wasn't sure what to expect....but as always, the Craft Candy team had done a great job of promoting the fair, there was a great turnout and it was a lovely day. After being lightly told off by Sarah for 'panicing her' by getting there about 20 minutes before the fair was due to start (sorry Sarah!)...we set up in a flash like the seasoned craft fair pros that we are; me with my stall...

And Seleena representing Sugar Paper Zine as well as her awesome crafy wares.

As we were snapping away at each others stall's with Seleena's little blue camera, the lovely Elodie appeared as if by magic! Elodie is a lovely and very talented lady, not only is she 50% of the band Plouf! she also makes lovely crafty stuff that is right up our street.

If you like what you see click on the picture to go to Elodie's little online shop!

And if you like what you saw in general...the next Craft Candy will be on 16th July, we might be there again (fingers crossed), but I will warn you now, I may be in a Harry Potter film enduced trance!

KD x

CRAFT CANDY !!!

Second stall of the year and it has come round oh so quickly..... this weekend Knit and Destroy will be setting up in the Millenium galleries in Sheffield for this sure to be awesome craft fair...



The Craft Candy fairs are always good fun and full of fantastic stalls!

Click on the poster to find out more about the Craft Candy Collective and see photos of previous fairs!

If you are anywhere near Sheffield you should come down and have a gander!


See you there.

KD x

New CAT on the block!!!

Hello there!

Have you heard...there's a new cat on the block?! BANDIT...She's a rebel cat with a cause. The newest member of the cat gang, and she's the leader. Here she is hanging out in the corner of knit and destroy HQ.



Bandit is a tough fun lovin' little kitty, she's always causing some sort of mishchief either on her own or with the gang! BANDIT is now available in the shop.


On the theme of cats and gangs, here is one of my favourite gangs of girls with an awesome song about cats, here are Mika Miko in...business cats!

Do you HEART knitting too?!

Hi there,

As you might know (or have guessed) by now...I love knitting, and until now I have stuck to knitting all my products. Today sees the launch of the new Knit and Destroy logo brooch - available in the online shop now!


I decided that the original 'knit and destroy' logo was too good to not do something with...as it no longer features on the website I thought i would make a brooch with it on so that you can show your love of knitting in all situations by sporting this awesome printed acrylic brooch!

Each brooch comes on a square of knitted fabric, here they are getting pinned on ready to be sent out to my lovely customers!

More soon, KD x

....because I haven't got a cat....

...I make lots of cat related things to fill that furry cat shaped hole in my life. This week has been very cat-centred with a big order for 'smoky' cushions' from Made in the Shade in Glasgow. I took them all downstairs to pack them, and look what they got up to when my back was turned....only a cat pyramid!!!

And I think they might just have been egged on by that cheeky masked cat atop the pyramid, she is a new cat on the block and there will be more about her soon, for now, the tale of Smoky...

Smoky is a friendly boy cat, one of those cats that always seems to be outside.

He belonged to our nextdoor neighbours at my old house and I think he spent more time roaming the back yards and basking on our flat bathroom roof than anywhere else, he just couldn't resist that warm sunny spot.

I would feed him (he was skinny) and we used to give him catnip for a treat and he loved it! This is what his face looked like when basking in that particular place....smoky the contented cat.

More tales of knitting (and possibly of cats too) soon.

KD x

All the....small things....

This month at Knit and Destroy HQ it's been the small things that have been making me happy and making the day-to-day more enjoyable...

Having an order to work to. Big thank you to Hannah Zakari for keeping me busy making things through January. All this lot is now on sale in their lovely shop in Edinburgh.

Home made coconut flapjack, anyone who knows me will know that tea breaks are a very important part of any day for me. For those teas to be accompanied by deeelicious home made flapjack is heaven!

And when I'm not having a tea break, I'm knitting...these knitting machines are fairly noisy things, and I usually amuse myself with music or audio books while I work. These stylin' stereo headphones I got for x-mas drown out the metallic whooshings of the machines leaving me with pure Stephen Fry's voice reading The Deathly Hallows...heaven!!!

Things for 10p...yes that'r right not 25p or 50p...10p! I picked up this awesome knitting pattern from Save The Children in Chestrerfield, it has already assisted in unearthing an amazing 'my mum knitted me a white bikini when I was 14' story from the lovely cynthia who I used to work with at Help The Aged.

Hope you have some 'small things' too

KD x

First stall of 2011....and some roller skating!

THIS WEEKEND...I am venturing out of the studio and taking a small selection of knits to a stall at Pond's Forge in Sheffield.

But this aint yr average craft fair, oh no...there will be other stalls full af awesome stuff to buy but, first and foremost, what's going down at Ponds Forge this Saturday is a Roller Derby Bout, wooooop!

Click the poster to take you to Sheffield Steel Rollergirls website for more information on the event.

So please do come along, buy some crafts and cupcakes and watch some very talented ladies (and men) do their Roller Derby thang!!!

Be there or I'll set the rollergrrls on you.

KD x

2010...my year in knit (and other things)...

There were a lot of firsts for me and Knit and Destroy last year, here are some of the highlights from 2010...

Making a new website, all real stuff like...

And making the catalogue

First ever festival, and first go at hand-screen printed tote-bags, first Sugar Paper craft event at a festival.

First trip to Shetland, which involved my first ever knitting conference, solo holiday and meeting of one of my favourite Harry Potter actors.

Proper camping holiday...just 2 layers of fabric between us and the elements!

Visited a Ye olde Theme Park on the top of a hill in Barcelona accessed by funicular railway!!!

First Solo Exhibition

First stand at the big ass Knitting and Stitching show.

And to top all of that I met John Waters!!!

I hope you all had a good 2010, and have an even better 2011.

KD x