Community co-design

Alongside my main collection, I developed a co-design project in collaboration with my grandmother’s care home. This began as a personal extension of the work, exploring how my knitting practice and zero-waste methodology could operate beyond a commercial context and into a community setting.

The project was developed through a series of knitting workshops, where I worked with the residents rather than designing for them. They played an active role in shaping the outcome, contributing ideas that reflected the home’s core values, incorporating their logo, prioritising vibrant colour, and expressing a shared sense of community. This ensured the panels were collectively authored, grounded in the voices and identities of those involved.

The workshops became spaces for conversation, where storytelling and skill-sharing naturally emerged, allowing personal histories and experiences to inform the work. This process highlights how craft can support intergenerational making, while also offering tactile, cognitive and social engagement for elderly participants.

The final panels bring together these individual contributions within unified compositions, demonstrating how the same methodologies used within the collection can be adapted for both commercial and community-based design outcomes.