Laura Dalgaard: Strong colours, soft textures and bold creativity – knitting that turns heads

By Signe Hansen | Photos: Laura Dalgaard Knit

From leopard-print sweaters to knitted computer sleeves and sculptural flowers, the work of Laura Dalgaard challenges traditional conceptions of knitwear. Educated at the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Arts, the knit-book author has built a distinctive design universe merging Nordic knitting traditions with pop culture and international references. Here, she tells Scan Magazine how knitting became her favourite medium and why she cannot stop creating.

Nearly a decade after first establishing Laura Dalgaard Knit, the designer has created a striking collection of patterns and curated yarn kits that invite knitters into a defined yet playful aesthetic world. The designs are bold, often graphic, and unmistakably her own. ”It has to be original,” Dalgaard says. “It shouldn’t just be a new version of something that already exists. At design school, you learn both to copy and to understand why something works, but for me, the important thing is moving beyond that. I don’t want to make a version of a sweater that someone else has already designed. It has to stand on its own.”

Her approach has led to a loyal following amongst knitters as well as several collaborations with fashion brands such as American Anthropology and Danish Baum und Pferdgarten.

Delicate and life-like, Dalgaard’s knitted f lowers defy traditional conceptions of knit. Photo: Steven Biccard

Not love at first sight

Some people have loved knitting since their first meeting with the craft, but not Dalgaard. As a child, she resisted her two grandmothers’ attempts to teach her to knit, but at 25, pregnant and after several rejections from art and design schools, she was introduced to the craft by a friend and teacher during what she describes as a difficult period. “Having the material in my hands and creating something was very healing at that time. I think a lot of people who have had that same experience – picking up knitting when they needed something calming and grounding. Just working with the yarn, feeling it and making something slowly, was very pleasing for me.”

Shortly after giving birth, she was admitted to the Danish Royal Academy of Fine Art, School of Design. Initially drawn to graphic design, she shifted to textiles and ultimately specialised in knitwear, using her final project year entirely on knitting. Her finishing project garnered wide attention and interest and since graduating in 2018, she has worked exclusively with knit. In knitting, she found both a pragmatic business model that gave her the flexibility she needed as a young single mother and a means to pursue her continuous urge to create. Today, her daughter, now 16, helps out in her business.

The mood board for Caught in Knit, an artwork created by Dalgaard for the Maritime Museum of Denmark.

Patterns, yarn and art

During the last decade, Laura Dalgaard Knit’s distinctive visual language has drawn an international community of knitters, with patterns released in both Danish and English. In 2022, she was invited to create a book of patterns, resulting in the publication of En samling af strik af Laura Dalgaard. In the book, she gathers some of her most recognisable designs, shaping them into a story that reflects her approach to knitwear as both craft and design.

Collaborations and exhibition pieces have further expanded that universe – among them a maritime-inspired sweater created for the Danish Maritime Museum, where traditional references meet unexpected colour and form. Meanwhile, some designs, like the Nordic Mix, which combine traditional Nordic patterns with graphic sharpness and Eastern symbols, have taken on a life of their own abroad, circulating widely among experienced knitters. For Dalgaard, accessibility remains central. “I like the democratic aspect,” she says. “Not everyone can afford to buy a finished hand-knitted sweater, but they can knit it themselves.”

Combining Nordic traditions with eastern culture and pop-culture influences, the Nordic Mix sweater has become one of Dalgaard’s most popular designs.

Bounded freedom

When it comes to the creative process behind the designs, it begins well before the first stitch is cast on. Ideas are gathered slowly – through sketches, books, exhibitions and mood boards. “The whole world is available as inspiration,” Dalgaard says, “but I need to limit it to create my own universe.”

Laura Dalgaard.

That sense of focus also shapes how she thinks about responsibility and longevity. ”I believe that when something takes time and requires craftsmanship, it creates a different kind of attachment. You understand what it takes to make it, and that makes you want to keep it,” she says.

Knitting, she goes on to explain, is defined by both structure and freedom. The craft and material come with technical limitations, yet those very constraints open new possibilities, and sometimes a specific yarn can become the inspiration for an entire design. It is that balance – between practical boundaries and creative exploration – that has made her work stand out and catch the eye of both fashion brands and home-knitters.

Now, having focused mainly on the patterns and yarn packages for the last few years, she hopes to return to something she tried her hand at early on – producing her own hand-knitted sweaters for fashion brands. “I can’t stop exploring,” she says, and concludes; “What really excites me is allowing myself to invent something new.”