Brilliant Knits - Introduction by
Brandon Mably
Who's Brandon, you may wonder. I'm a guy
brought up in a small seaside town on the coast of South Wales
who is crazy about colour & design, and enthusiastic to share my
pleasures with others.
Fine appearance had been bred into me from an early age, starting with my
Irish grandparents who were always immaculately dressed. My own
mother made fine clothes when we were children, some of which
she still has. I have always been attracted to personalities
with individual flair. One of my fond memories is seeing a
neighbor doing her grocery shopping in a blue striped caftan
that her husband had bought her from the Far East and how proud
she looked.
Why knitting, you may wonder. My first impressions as a child was of
having the local candy shop serve as the wool shop! Next to all
the glass jars containing delicious, lurid coloured candies were
floor to
ceiling, dark wooden shelves, wire racks, and old glass cabinets
bulging with vividly coloured balls, spools, and hanks of
knitting yarn, all housed in their colour families. A great way
to get children into a yarn shop at an early age, wouldn't you
say?
I have distant memories of knitting lessons
being taught to the boys as well as the girls as part of the
school curriculum. The only recollection of the lessons are the
deep, smoky pink-coloured plastic needles I used. It was in my
early 20's that I discovered knitting was a delightfully simple,
unexpected way of playing with colours.
I'm fairly new to the knitting world and quite basic in my approach to
technique. In the process of learning to knit I realized that
the cables, fancy stitches, and unusual shapes would distract
from the impact I wanted to create. So I concentrated on using
good old stocking stitch and a fabulous technique to be able to control the colour changes, and
to knit your ends in as you go along, while keeping the shape of
the garment simple and classic to allow for any sizing.
How did I start out? Back in the '80's I turned from professional cooking
to designing. This funny career change came about through an
accidental meeting with the man who put knitting on the map -
Kaffe Fassett.
The moment I walked into his studio I was struck by the walls braced
 with
shelves floor to ceiling, housing spools of yarns divided into
colour groupings. The floorboards covered in Turkish and Islamic
carpets. Piles of needlepoint cushions smothered in images of
vegetables, animals, and flowers. Waist-high Chinese urns, and
collections of decorative ceramics filled every corner. A bank
of huge, wide open wicker baskets stuffed with balls of wool,
cotton, silk and chenille yarns; all in smoldering tones of
colour and textures. Cupboards and drawers bursting with neatly
stacked, highly patterned, knitted garments. It was like
entering a candy shop for the first time.
This was my first brush with the labyrinth of a creative mind and with
something I knew I wanted to be a part of.
My apprenticeship took place as I attended to the organizing and running
of the studio, whilst watching Kaffe and his team design and
execute commissions, and create the books he is now famous for.
Kaffe would often ask for my input on the designs he was
creating and liking my intuitive answers, encouraged me to try
designing myself.
I took over the teaching of the Kaffe Fassett knitting workshops after
teaching them for some time, as Kaffe's schedule filled up with more
demanding tasks. These teaching posts connected me to the exotic
worlds of Iceland, Africa, Japan, North and South America, and
Canada, where everything about the cultures have been such a
stimulant to my designer's eye.
I entered Kaffe Fassett's world with no experience, but discovered a
natural instinct for colour & design. This has grown as I have
had the
 opportunity
of teaching and encouraging others. And there is nothing more
rewarding to me than encouraging others to have a go themselves!
It has taught me one thing beyond all others - most people have
buried within them a sense of colour and design.
Here I am throwing out some ideas for you to knit up, but like any good
recipe, feel free to change the ingredients to suite your own
palette and shape. All the garments are knitted in the wonderful
colour ranges of Rowan and Jaegar yarns using basic stocking
stitch. Take advantage of all of the yarns we have available to
us, and if they are not on your doorstep, look a little further,
remembering that there is always the internet and mail order.
When styling a garment it is important to me to keep in mind that a
colour scheme can be enriched or diminished by the colours
accompanying it, for instance, buttons and other accessories.
I hope you enjoy this book as much as I have enjoyed putting it together!
BRANDON MABLY
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