Brandon Mably was born in 1968 in Porthcawl, a small seaside town midway between Cardiff and Swansea. He particularly remembers, as a child, visiting the local sweet shop with its kaleidoscope of colours: not only the jars filled with sweets but also shelves full of knitting yarns.  Surprisingly for a small boy, it was the rainbow-coloured knitting yarns that caught his attention. However, by the time he was 17, he had qualified as a chef and restaurant manager at nearby Bridgend College and, for a time, pursued a career in catering, first in London and then in Pennsylvania. Then a new opportunity arose:  he was given the job of private cook to the British Ambassador in Athens.  According to

Brandon, this job was both a challenge and a nightmare.  He explains, "I was 20 at the time and I wasn't really up for the position but I certainly wasn't going to say 'No' if they offered me the job!"  This episode is an early example of Brandon's ability to talk his way into anything, letting his enthusiasm lead the way.  Then, after a spell running a restaurant on one of the Greek islands, he returned to London.  In London he met the American knitting designer Kaffe Fassett and, as Brandon says, "That's how my career changed from being a chef, to working in the world of colour and design."

Summer Stars jacket.

 

    LONELY YOUNG MAN
 

Brandon explains that Kaffe's studio is quite close to where he lived in North London.  They met at a bus stop and started talking.  Brandon describes the first encounter in his typically elliptical way, "We were catching a bus.  I had my fascination for America and I just talk to anybody.  I'm just a tramp at heart!" Kaffe explained that he was an author and designer, which apparently meant nothing to Brandon but, he says, "It was obviously intriguing so I went round on my day off to see what he was about."  Going round to Kaffe's studio came to be a regular event.  His obvious contentment at having found his niche comes through as he says, "As soon as I came to the studio, everything felt completely natural but it was a mess:  a creative mess.  I just started putting a bit of order to it and cooking meals for the staff."  Cooking lunch for Kaffe at 1pm. has become a daily ritual. The studio began to feel like home in what Brandon describes as a very unfriendly London. 

Gameboard jacket.

He says, "London's a very strange place; a very cold place.  People don't know their neighbours.  It's like a broken omelet:  all in little pockets, sort of spread out."  It seems that Kaffe was aware of the loneliness experienced by 21-year-old Brandon and, on the third time of asking, finally gave him a job in the studio.  Brandon remembers well the words Kaffe used, "Well, I don't know what you are going to do but start on Monday and we'll see."   Brandon recalls being quite scared and thinking, "Where's my future in all this?"  but he has quickly moved from the role of general

factotum to becoming studio manager and personal assistant to Kaffe.  He has been working for Kaffe for 14 years now and does not regret one second of it.  He loves the buzz he gets from the variety, the seemingly impossible tasks and the stimulation of working in such a creative atmosphere. He explains, "Every day is different and a complete challenge.  The phone will go and it will send me spinning off in one direction and then another direction and I like that."  You would never guess from talking to Brandon that he is extremely competent at what he does; he tends to play down his efficiency. Life may be in a spin but it is a very well organized spin.  Poking fun at himself, Brandon describes his role as Studio Manager, "I am the dog at the gate because people have to get past me.  Or, perhaps, Coco the Clown because I am the ice-breaker!"  As Studio Manager Brandon deals with media, book publishers, and private commissions and also controls Kaffe's diary, which involves workshops and exhibitions all over the world.  the diary is full for the next year and a half.  So far this year they have traveled for workshops to Norway, Denmark, and France and to Italy, where they commissioned a chandelier to be made from Venetian glass to their own design.  They visited India on an

inspiration-seeking mission and to check on the village co-operatives that produce cotton fabrics for their patchwork projects.  Scotland is next on the list of destinations for a family wedding, followed by Ireland, Sweden, America and finally Mexico for a painting holiday.  Next week he and Kaffe begin a new venture nearer home, covering a children's playground with mosaics at the Mulberry School in North London.  In the quieter moments, Brandon sits knitting or doing needlepoint and, as the years have gone on, he has become recognized as a designer in his own right.  Now he does most of the knitting workshops and many of the patchwork and painting workshops himself. Describing the variety of his life, he says, "I enjoy it: it's like a wonderful mosaic."

Shark sweater.

  

    THE DESIGNER EMERGES
 

Brandon claims that he got his eye for colour from his mother, who used colour in a very personal way: in the way she dressed or in little floral arrangements.  She did knit, but only one-colour garments in those days although she now knits both Kaffe's and Brandon's designs, injecting her own colour twists.  Brandon remembers being taught to knit in school, "I remember those little plastic needles.  They were a magenta pink and I can remember sticking them in somebody's ear.  And I haven't changed, I can assure you."  The naughty little boy is not far below the surface, coming through in Brandon's sense of fun and his energetic enthusiasm for all he is involved in.  On joining Kaffe's studio, he learned to knit again.  It took about six weeks to master all he needed to know and he remembers, "We didn't allow ourselves to loosen up - we just stuck at it."  Today he cannot imagine knitting a one-colour sweater, which, he

Belinda, Brandon's sister, wearing Olives cardigan.

explains, would be a quick recipe for insanity.  If Kaffe can be considered the Wizard of knitting, then Brandon has become the Sorcerer's Apprentice.  It wasn't long before Brandon began working on his own designs. Traveling the world with Kaffe has given him many sources of inspiration for his varied designs.  He explains, "Kaffe and I travel so much and it all goes in the memory bank. It's like a slide show:  one thing will relate to another and out will come an idea that is intriguing and fresh."  Brandon believes that he is very lucky in that he can easily visualize the finished garment from an inspiration source.

 He describes his 'Nantucket' design where, on a summer visit to Cape Cod on the American East Coast, he saw pastel-shaded timber-boarded houses with front yards surrounded by picket fences. In the knitwear design,  the picket fences become vertical stripes, with grey chevrons recalling seagulls in the summer skies.  Brandon loves what he calls the 'creative breads' that you find in supermarkets these days.  One that he particularly likes contains sliced olives. He says that, one day when he was cutting the bread, the idea suddenly occurred to him that the shape of the olives would make a wonderful design source.  In the finished jacket design, the ovals of the cut olives depicted in pale purple and plum stand out against a background of reverse stocking stitch in lime green.  Brandon says, "To avoid having flat predictable circles like doughnuts,  I gave the circle shape a little wobble by using two shades of purple, one in cotton and the other in chenille."  The result is a very distinctive design, both in shape and colour, which somehow seems to reflect Brandon's sense of fun.

 

    HOW INSPIRATION STRIKES
 

Brandon describes how inspiration comes to him, "I've got what I would call a maverick mind; it is always jumping, jumping, jumping."  One of his most successful designs for men is call 'Shark'.  He says it derives from the appearance of a BMW sports car with vents in the front.  He explains, "I said to Kaffe, that it looks like a shark with gills and that it would make

a contemporary and fresh design."  Brandon had also thought of doing slashes on the garment like the 'Z' of Zorro but, so far, has been unable to work that out.  So the mark of Zorro awaits a future design.  Brandon tries to avoid designing becoming a mental process.  He shuns the graph paper used by other designers, which he feels might stifle spontaneity, saying, "I just sit down and start knitting it and see how it comes out."  The resounding success of Brandon's designs might lead on to suspect, however, that he has a clear vision in his head of what he wants to achieve.  His first design for Rowan Yarns, back in 1991, was called 'Great Plains'.

Yvonne, Brandon's mother, wearing Tall Poppies cardigan.

PLAYING WITH SHAPES
 

Brandon feels that he has not yet found a definitive style and is still experimenting.  What he is interested in is the shape of knitted garments.  He explains, "My main ambition is to do designs that aren't geared to any particular age group."  With this in mind he aims to keep the designs quite simple and graphic so that they can be expanded or

Kubra waistcoat.

lengthened readily. In two of his most recent designs, 'Nantucket' and 'Gameboard', the basic shape is a rectangle with sleeves added.  He says, "That is a new shape I am playing with a lot."  He prefers to use finer yarns that allow the knitted fabric to drape well, overcoming the problem of where to place the shoulder-line. At the moment he is working on a one-of-a-kind design for an American client.  The lady has requested a reworking of his 'Old Tiles' design, on a scale large enough to make a swing coat.  Brandon jokes, "She is going to look like the most amazing panorama of antique slate roofs!"  No doubt the result will be fabulous.

    WORKING WITH 'LIFERS'
 

One of the events in Brandon's working life that he has most enjoyed was a visit to Wormwood Scrubs to take a needlepoint class with the 'lifers'.  Brandon describes the visit as an extraordinary experience, especially as a shortage of staff meant that the class had to be rescheduled from the arts room to the 'Lifers' wing of the prison. Brandon explains that it was the prisoners' recreation hour out of the cells, "You can imagine:  the class took place in this sort of greenhouse in the middle of the wing looking up four floors.  All the walkways were mesh so you could see the prisoners walking around.  They were looking in at us and I was looking out at them."  Bravery was rewarded however as the workshop went very well, with 12 of the prisoners discussing their projects.  Brandon describes the experience as exhilarating, so much so that he and Kaffe have been back to Wormwood Scrubs and have also visited Maidenhead and other high-security prisons outside London.  These visits were arranged by 'Cellwork', a charity that Brandon supports and which organizes the sale of needlepoint cushions to produce a small income for prisoners.  Another project, this time arranged by the Arts

Council, which Brandon describes as 'the most rewarding experience I have ever had', took place in Stockton-On-Tees recently.  He and Kaffe taught a class of 34 nine-year-olds.  The subject was 'Working with Colour'.  Brandon seems to have a particular talent for teaching that rivals his skills as a designer.  He especially enjoys teaching children because preconceived ideas or rules of correctness do not inhibit their enjoyment and creativity.  He does also enjoy teaching adults, coaxing them to overcome their fears, to overlook mistakes and to play with yarns and colour as if they were children again.  Brandon's obvious excitement and the satisfaction that he gets from knitting are very

Banded Stripe sweater.

contagious.  He says, "What I so enjoy is being able to share what I have learnt to do with other people."  Last year he taught workshops in 21 cities around the world and very much enjoyed the challenge of working with people from so many different cultures and textile traditions. 
 

    TIME OUT BY THE SEA
 

Away from the frenetic pace of his working life, Brandon finds peace on the Sussex coast in his new house in Hastings.  It is a five-bed roomed Victorian house that he shares with his mother, Yvonne, and his twin sister, Belinda.  Brandon explains, "Because I came from the coast, it is very important to me to spend time by the sea and it also allows me to live in London."  He uses it as an antidote to all the stresses and strains of London life.  He regrets having to sell his house in Rye, which he and Kaffe had decorated with mosaics.  He says, "It's been a tough one to let it go but you just move on and now we have a bigger doll's house to play with."  He considers a new house to be like an open canvas, on which you can paint your own design, and relishes the prospect. So what is it about knitting that Brandon finds so compulsive?  He feels it gives him focus and an increases sensitivity.  He says, "It sets off a tingle in my body.  It allows me to feel."  But it also gives him an overwhelming sense of peace.  He has noticed a trend, both in America and here, of younger people taking an interest in knitting, not just to produce a garment or accessory, but to achieve a state of mind.  The events of 9-11 in New York encouraged people to knit to find an inner calm and the hectic pace of modern life also leads people to find a way to take time-out.  As Brandon says, "Knitting is the new meditation.  People knit because they are giving time back to themselves. And I want to be an ambassador for all this."  Brandon's warmth, energy and infectious good humor mean that he is an ideal candidate for the job of Ambassador for Knitting and, this time, there will be no need for him to talk his way into the job!

 

This article was reprinted with permission from the wonderful new magazine, Knitting.   Subscriptions can be obtained from Knitting, GMC Publications, 166 High Street, Lewes, East Sussex BN7 1XU