Kate Box is a textile designer maker, passionate about blending contemporary design with traditional craft.

Working from my home-studio in the South Downs National Park, I began my independent practice designing knitwear on a range of domestic knitting machines.

Colour was, and is the driving force behind all my work, and experimenting with hues, tones and combinations of colours has been a fascination since studying at the Royal College of Art (2000-2002).

I work with lambswool a highly-versatile, renewable fibre which responds well to the natural dyes of plants native to the UK.

Natural Dyeing

In 2024 I began exploring natural dyeing, taking a six-month course at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft with Jenny Dean and Jacqui Symons.

This introduced a new dimension to my understanding of colour. Working with natural dyes means that colour is no longer simply something I select from a palette of commercially dyed yarns. It is something that develops through the land, the dye plants, the fibre, the water, the process and the relationship between successive baths and modifiers.

I now work with both naturally dyed and mill-dyed yarns. The two approaches are different, but they come together through the same fascination with colour and how it can be explored through knitting.

My natural dye work was exhibited at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft in 2024 as part of Colours from Nature, and I have continued to develop this area of my practice.

Colour and Machine Knitting

My interest in colour has also led me to look more deeply at the relationship between colour and machine knitting.

I am currently writing Designing with Colour, a book exploring colour through the possibilities of machine knitting. The book is due to be published in 2027.

Writing it has given me the opportunity to spend an extended period thinking about something that has always been central to my work: what happens when colour, yarn and knitted structure come together.

Exhibitions

My work has been exhibited in galleries and museums including Gallery 57, Arundel, Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, Chelsea College of Art and The New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham.

Recent exhibitions include:

June - July 2026 ‘Display and Function’ - Gallery 57, Arundel.

May 2025 ‘7 Rows’ - a curated exhibition of nine artists and designers who specialised in knitted textiles at Chelsea College of Art.

Dec 2024 ‘Colours from Nature’ - Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, Ditchling.

Feb - April 2024 ‘Cloth and Clay’ - Gallery 57, Arundel.

Nov 2022 - Jan 2023 ‘Winter Craft Collection’ - The New Ashgate Gallery, Farnham.

June 2002 ‘Graduate Show ‘ Henry Moore Gallery, The Royal College of Art