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BALANCE FOR BETTER BLANKET

Winner of  International Women's Day

best practice award

As an organisation of keen crafters and committed feminists, we felt it would be fun to get together and celebrate International Women's Day through a collaborative, commemorative knitting project.

We used the whole process to educate ourselves and one another about a diverse range of other creative women. We began by designing blanket squares to honour 30 women who have inspired us. We selected colours, motifs and patterns to reflect the work, achievements and legacy of each woman commemorated in the blanket and, as we researched and knitted each square, we reflected on our own feminist interests and sources of inspiration.  Finally, as we stitched the blanket squares together in preparation for International Women's Day, we shared the individual women's stories we'd researched, celebrating  many different creative and pioneering practices from political activism to sound art.

Though the #balanceforbetter blanket was created for International Women's Day 2019, our hope is that it will have a long life as both a beautiful commemorative object and an educational resource (it is already a familiar talking point for visitors to our organisation). We also hope that other makers and crafters might build on ideas embodied by the blanket, developing their own collaborative feminist projects, and their own commemorative objects for events like International Women's Day.

Each square in the #balanceforbetter blanket was designed by Kate Davies and Felicity Ford and hand knitted using the fairisle technique. Details of each square, and each individual woman commemorated can be viewed here

Why not get together with your group or organisation and create something in collective celebration of the women who have inspired you? 

Kate Davies Designs (KDD & Co) is an award-winning Scottish company specialising in  publishing and design. We developed this blanket as a not-for-profit educational project. Involved in its design and making were Kate Davies, Felicity Ford, Melanie Patton, Tom Barr, Frauke Urban, Jane Hunter, Sam Kilday, and Claire Leach. Find out more about us here.

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