Renewed Inspiration

I have been reminded recently of why I started designing and the events that influenced my love of color, pattern, and yarn…a reminder that has sparked the return to a past trip to the islands of Scotland.

You see, several years ago, a freelance job resulted in a reasonable sum of money burning a hole in my pocket. I decided to take a trip and selected a tour organized by the Rowan Yarn Company. At that time in my life, I had only picked up my knitting sporadically. I had always loved knitting and thought a trip like this would be fun. 

There were several tours to select from…each going to different locations with different instructors (two each) on different dates. I chose my tour from the dates I was available, not knowing much about any of the instructors.

First stop was Shetland, a group of wonderfully remote islands off the north coast of Scotland.

The group consisted of eighteen individuals, if I remember correctly, from all over the US. Included was a child advocate lawyer, a botanist working in South America, a writer who would become an editor of Interweave Knits, and a music legend’s mom.

Our first instructor (and incredible designer) was Kaffe Fassett who was accompanied by his assistant, Brandon Mably, who would become a designer in his own right.

Kaffe and Brandon were introduced...and we all trooped into the very posh, four star, dining room for our evening meal. The restaurant seated us in an alcove a little distance from the local diners. Diners who thought they were going to have a nice quiet, four star meal on a Saturday night.

For some reason, either because of European ideas of fashionably late dinners or American ignorance of fashionably late dinners, the meal seemed to take an eternity to be served. We entertained ourselves with dinner table chatter. Somehow the conversation turned to the memories evoked by certain songs. That led to at first timid, then raucous, renditions of whatever song was suggested. Did I mention that the wine was not on the same timetable as the food?

The turning point was a version of the title song from Oklahoma! delivered at theater level volume by eighteen Americans who were having a really good time!

My recollection is that the food arrived rather quickly after that.

Kaffe’s workshop was fabulous, as you might expect. Colorful yarn was dumped on the floor and we all scrambled to find just the right shade to make our masterpiece for the master.

Knowing nothing at the time about Intarsia, my swatch embarrassingly fell completely apart. Kaffe was gracious enough to say something complementary about it…as he did for everyone.

Kaffe later branched out to designing fabrics for quilting among other glorious things. Brandon followed suit and both men are known these days as the Color Guys.

A few years ago, I ran into both of the “guys” on their “return to knitting” tour. They didn't remember me…I really didn't expect them to…but they did remember the dinner in Shetland.

Note how Kaffe addressed his autograph in my copy of his book…

Kaffe's use of color... and just the way he talked about color... was an inspiration to me. Would that I could have a fraction of his talent.

Note: These pictures were taken long before the use of digital photography...or at least before I had any access to a digital camera.