I grew up in London living in a high-rise apartment and spent many hours wandering the halls of museums and galleries for distraction. Visiting these magical places I developed a love of costume, textiles and fashion. Realizing I wanted to study fashion design I embarked on a degree in ‘Textiles for Fashion’ at Brighton University, a seaside town with brilliant vintage stores which offered me an alternative way of dressing.

Wearing vintage clothes gave me an appreciation of the skill and love that goes into handmade clothes, the processes used and the attention to details. Whilst at university I discovered a love of designing using the medium of hand knitting, although I was taught to knit by my maternal grandmother aged six, my course showed me how to take knit and purl stitches, combine and experiment with them and transform yarn into beautiful knitted garments.

During university I was fortunate to spend a three-month internship at Rowan Yarns situated in the heart of the Yorkshire countryside. Rowan published 2 of my very early designs in Rowan Magazine No. 6 and after completing my degree I worked as an ‘in-house’ designer for Rowan Yarns for 11 years, ultimately becoming the designer and brand manager for Jaeger Handknits and Patons UK.

I decided to become a freelance knitwear designer in 2001 after my second child was born. Since then I have worked alongside my husband, Stephen, a photographer and together we created the Miss Bea series of knitting books inspired by our children.

In 2005 I was incredibly fortunate to be offered the opportunity of introducing my eponymous line of yarns and pattern publications, Louisa Harding Yarns. During this extremely productive period I was responsible for sourcing and introducing new yarns, designing garments and accessories published in 46 pattern books.

I had always hoped to introduce a British sourced yarn and in 2016 Stephen and I returned to the textile heritage of Yorkshire and launched Yarntelier, a bespoke collection of Cashmere yarns.

A recent move to Scotland has resulted in an exciting opportunity to work again with Louisa Harding Yarns, introducing a new yarn collection alongside designing brand new pattern support. This collection is distributed by Knitting Fever/Euro Yarns in the USA, Canada and Europe.

Knitters have always been my inspiration and I am so flattered and thrilled to showcase my new collection this Fall Winter.