All Art is Borrowing – T.S. Elliott is supposed to have said
Yarn Compost and New Fabrics
Whence All the Flowers
Diamonds and Otherwise
The Holiday Shawl
Finding Kaffe Fassett’s work and the work of other knitters changed the way I knitted and what I knitted from then on. It was liberating. Now I was in charge beyond the patterns and while I continued to draw on all the traditions, experience, knowledge and knitting wisdoms of those who came before, I felt confident to make up my own patterns and develop my own techniques. It wasn’t a matter of throwing out the old patterns and rules. As Liz Gemmell was later to say to us, ‘A pattern is just a plan, sometimes the pattern is in a book, sometimes it’s a plan in your head.’
Each of the links in this section represents work I developed in the late 1980s and early 90s as I interpreted various ‘borrowings’ from various knitters who inspired me along the way. It was a brief time of transition to the stage where I was able to try new ideas.