Ethical Scottish knitwear and visible creative mending
Helping you to have a sustainable wardrobe full of colour
This V-bed knitting machine is powered by me- no electricity required!
Linking: finishing edges and joining seams. A process requiring precision.
Sewing in ends- each item is finished by hand.
I’m Flora Collingwood-Norris, a knitwear designer, maker and visible mender based in Galashiels in the Scottish Borders. I’ve been passionate about textiles, and knitwear in particular, all my life.
After graduating with first class honours in Design for Textiles in 2009, I worked freelance in various knitwear roles before launching Collingwood-Norris in 2016. My freelance work has included designing swatches, creating catwalk pieces for Christopher Kane, Jasper Conran and House of Holland, designing hand knit and crochet patterns for a yarn company, as well as teaching at Heriot Watt University and Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design.
Ethical Scottish Knitwear
Collingwood-Norris knitwear is made either by me in my Galashiels studio on hand-powered knitting machines, or in small batches at one of my local factories in Hawick, valuing local knowledge and craftsmanship. Each piece made in the studio has the name of the knitter on the label.
To bring you joy every time you wear it, my ethical knitwear focuses on colour, inspired by the Scottish landscapes I love. Designed to transcend seasonal trends and be worn time after time.
Championing the use of natural fibres, I aim to bring out the best in the lamb’s wool used in my designs, so that it looks great and feels fantastic next to your skin.
Each item is made to shape and so is naturally zero waste. However, sometimes things do go wrong (I’m only human), so I keep the mistakes and scraps and turn them into lavender bags and mending kits to help with knitwear care.
Helping you keep your knitwear for longer.
Choose to never throw away holey knitwear again!
My book “Visible creative mending for knitwear” will guide you through caring for and repairing your knitwear with style, the ultimate anti fast-fashion statement!
Visible Creative Mending
Extending the life of the clothing you own is the best way to have a sustainable wardrobe and reduce textile waste.
I’ve put all my mending knowledge into my book “Visible creative mending for knitwear” to help guide you through caring for and repairing your knitwear. I also offer live and pre-recorded darning workshops and a series of video guides, as well as darning wool.
Combining traditional skills with contemporary design is something that can set your mending apart. My book on mending knitwear and darning workshops will help you take your mending to the next level so you can rejuvenate your old knitwear and feel like you have something new to wear.
Wearing visibly mended sweater and jeans! Both of these have had several rounds of mending, which has so far extended their life by about 4 years.
Luxurious Natural Fibres
I use super-soft, fine lamb’s wool that’s cruelty-free, and spun and dyed in Kinross, Scotland, using Global Organic Textile Standard approved dyes. Wool has many wonderful properties that make it a fantastic sustainable fibre. It is renewable, biodegradable (and it’s natural, so no micro plastics will be released when you wash it), and unless it’s actually dirty, you can air it after wearing rather than washing it.
I also use very fine silk, spun in Italy. Silk is also natural and biodegradable, and has a beautiful natural shine and drape. Like wool, it will keep you warm when it’s cool, and cool when it’s warm. A great alternative if you’re allergic to wool, or perhaps if you’d like a little bit more glamour in your life.
For mending, and for some one-of-a-kind-scarves, I also use cashmere. The spinners in Kinross sell me any end cones they have left from their sample room. This is pre-consumer waste and using it to extend the life of knitwear seems very appropriate.
Cones of lambswool in the Collingwood-Norris studio
Follow me on Instagram to see work in progress.