A little bit about me….
As a child I was always drawing, stitching or making something and my Mum taught me to hand knit at the age of 7. My fascination with yarn, texture and colour led me to study for a degree in textile design where I specialised in hand & machine knitting learning to crochet, bead and embroider along the way. I’ve worked as a freelance textile designer and tutor teaching machine knitting at Bucks New University in Buckinghamshire and hand knitting at The Royal College of Art in London. As an accessories obsessive I have produced collections under my own label ‘duppdupp’, written 3 books ‘Easy Knitted Accessories’, ‘Easy Beaded Knits’ & ‘Easy Knitted Socks’, produced two collections of designs for Artesano Alpaca as well as Collection One a book of 10 designs using Knitglobal’s plain and variegated sock yarn.
Colour is very important to me and my design process often begins with that search for an intriguing stitch that will attract your creative juices or a decorative or constructive detail that will give the project a stylish, contemporary edge. My designs have featured in ‘Simply Knitting’,’ The Knitter’ and ‘Knitting Magazine’ where for the last 5 years I have also contributed the A-Z of Techniques feature.
In May 2016 I was diagnosed with a couple of ‘unwelcome guests’ – two brain tumours which thankfully have proved to be benign. Having undergone surgery for a bilateral craniotomy I now find that with memory and concentration issues I am having to take life at a much, much slower pace and seriously re-evaluate my work / life balance. There are still days when my ‘wobbly brain’ finds focussing to write a bit of a struggle so expect the odd spelling and grammatical mistake and blog posts about anything; from knit to crochet, art to design, interiors to food.
In November 2016 I wrote a guest column for Knitting Magazine entitled ‘Black People Do Knit‘ in which I began to questioned the lack of diversity in the crafting industry. I don’t take credit for starting the conversation, I simply added my voice. What I found was that there was lots of interest in the work of black / POC talents in the fibre community and where that work could be found. This led me to start the POC Designers & Crafters list which is becoming a valuable resource of knitters, crocheters, dyers, tech editors, designers and makers that I’ll continue to update and broaden often as I can.
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