Judy Furlong Fashion Designer - Knitting Weaving Designs Garments and Accesories in Wool and Luxury Fibres / Yarns including Celtic / Scottish Tartan

Fashion & Passion
GARETH EVANS TALKS TO KNITWEAR DESIGNER JUDY FURLONG ABOUT HER LIFE AND LOVE OF WOOL
First published in Knitting Magazine, January 2006

“My mother taught me to knit before I went to school – actually probably before I could walk!” With that sort of an introduction, it is no wonder that as a small child growing up in Ayrshire, Judy Furlong dreamt of one day having her own wool shop. She may not yet have achieved that early ambition, and she places a clearly audible emphasis on the “yet”, but her passion for fibres burns every bit as brightly. Although it is not really far as the crow flies from the west coast of her childhood to the rugged north east of Scotland where she now lives, she certainly has come a long way in the intervening years of the journey.

NEW ENGLAND CALLS
Although Judy had been designing and making knitwear for herself and others throughout her teenage years, it was not until a few years after she had finished her post graduate training at the University of Glasgow that it became much clearer where her future was to lie. Seeking to further her fledgling career led to a two-year stay in America and the Rhode Island Needle Works. By simple good fortune she heard that the area’s best known knitting designer was looking to recruit new talent; that designer was none other than Deborah Newton, then Technical Editor of Vogue Knitting. It was an introduction that was to prove inspirational.
“We got on fabulously well,” Judy says “ and she opened my eyes to the way the fashion industry really works. She was great fun to work for – meticulous but wonderfully fair.” While Judy has much praise for her old mentor, it is clear that the admiration is not all one-way; one of Deborah Newton’s books describes Judy as a “wonderful knitter.”

Judy wearing one of her own designs
a Monte Carlo top in 100% cashmere

While Judy put her time in America to very good use, taking courses and talking to as many knitters and needle-workers as she could, her stay taught her other things too.

For one thing, she discovered that there was a problem with her shop-owning dream that she had not foreseen. “I hated seeing the wool go out of the door,” she laughs. “It was wonderful chatting to people about knitting and their projects, but I found I simply loathed the moment when I actually had to let go of the sumptuous fibres we had. It was horrible!”

Less amusingly, she also realised just how much she missed her own country. “There’s a line in an old Scottish song ‘ Fair as these foreign hills may be, they’re not the hills of home’. Well, it was a bit like that for me; I loved my time in New England , but after two years I knew I just had to go back.”

Design sketches
Judy is never happier than when working on a new design idea.
She is a prolific sketcher!

It’s a long way – and a lot of stitches – from first idea to finished article!

COMING HOME
Over the following years Judy spent her time gaining ever more experience and developing the new skills, such as spinning and weaving, which have come to play such a large part in her work today.

Inevitably, the transition came to designing in her own right and commissions soon followed, both for knitting and for the hand-weaving which she also launched under her own label. Since those early days, she has produced a range of fine textile goods for a number of prestigious clients, including Aberdeen Airport and the Historic Scotland Visitor Centre at Urquhart Castle by Loch Ness.

Judy is very clear that, for her, computers have no place in the actual design process and she is never happier than with the buzz of a new idea in her head and crayons and paper pad in her hands. However she is no Luddite and has been quick to embrace the benefits that IT – and the internet in particular – can bring, such as the chat room set up for National Knitting Week and the opportunity to market her kits to an international audience. She particularly values the feedback she gets through her guest book and tries to respond as often as she can. “It’s great to hear which designs people actually knitted. Knitting a sweater is a big investment of time and it’s been terribly flattering to hear from people all over the world who have enjoyed making my things.” Understanding the effort involved is the main driver on both Judy’s uncompromising use of quality yarns and her near-obsessional dedication to checking patterns. As a knitter herself, she cannot help but think that way.	Spectacular sunsets seen from her own garden remind Judy of her childhood on Scotland ’s West Coast, where she dreamt of owning her own wool shop
WORKING DAYS
Her office is full of a profusion of wool, cashmere and silk in a kaleidoscope of rainbow colours. It overlooks the sea, reinforcing the link to a knitting childhood spent on a different shore, in sight of the Isle of Arran. There are resident dolphins and last summer she saw Minke Whales from her garden; she knows that she has been lucky. “I earn my living doing something I love – surrounded by wonderful yarns all day long and I get to keep them!”	So, what does the future hold? “I’ve rather neglected the workshop courses of late,” she confesses, “but I’m hoping to run more of those; the kits are becoming established and I’ll be offering more designs over the coming months.” She is also currently working on a new book project and has been approached to produce another of Scottish Celebrity Knits. There has also been the suggestion of a catwalk show later in 2006. “Actually, all I need is a 36 hour day and I might just about keep up,” she jokes. If there is anyone who can make one, it is probably Judy.