About the Coats-Patons Donation

Blue evening outfit.

Bohus sweater.

https://kcguild.org.uk/media/filer_public_thumbnails/filer_public/33/9b/339b19f4-0638-4e85-a8da-9b2f236a3ba0/32a.png__690x490_q85_upscale.jpg

Shetland lace stole.

Fair Isle tam.

4-ply yarn.

The Knitting & Crochet Guild Collection received a significant donation in 2014 from Coats plc. This was their knitwear archive of around 60 pieces and their pattern archive, consisting of around 10,000 leaflets and their scans.

The knitwear was the archive of the knitting yarn firm, Patons or Patons & Baldwins, which merged with Coats in 1960, hence the name Coats-Patons donation. The knitwear archive forms this online ‘exhibit’ along with a small sample of associated patterns, needles and shade cards, most of which were already in the KCG Collection.

The garments form a varied collection. There are vintage pieces, those bought for design inspiration, historical reproductions and some made for showing at trade events. All are hand knitted and all are wool. Documentation is limited to labels attached to the garments which are shown.

If you would like more information about a particular item please contact the collection team. collection@kcguild.org.uk.

This exhibit is a pilot project, a step towards making the Knitting & Crochet Guild collection more accessible to the public.

Use the index to explore the exhibit. The "Pictorial index" lets you scroll through the whole donation, but if you want to jump straight to a specific type object you can use one of the other links.

Index to this selection