“I grew up in Germany, with knitting. My grandmother taught me to knit when I was four-years-old, and I have been knitting ever since. I love seeing people knit with our yarn, and I want to do the same, all the time, but business comes first. We had to build it up, so I didn’t have the time to knit as much as I wanted. But now I will have more time.”

Ingrid, in a bright green crocheted top and white jacket, is bubbling with enthusiasm that daughter Karin has decided to join the family business. “Hans and I,” she says, “are blessed with a daughter who not only has the business experience, but is an artist, too. We are very proud of her.”

Her head touching Ingrid’s, Karin Skacel smiles for the camera. You know she finds her mother’s praise a bit embarrassing, but this is a story about proud parents and their children.

“I was lost to the business world,” Karin says, “when I heard that mom and dad were planning on retiring and selling the business. There was no pressure from my parents, and the time was right. The children were in college, so I was able to move back to the Seattle area.”

“I strongly believe,” Ingrid says, “that you shouldn’t force children into the business. Hans and I were very surprised when she decided to come back.”

“Skacel was a natural for me,” Karin says. “I love everything about this business: the people are kind, friendly, wonderful. And number one, there’s the fiber—I’m a fiber addict. You should see my studio at home. I like the touch, the feel, the knitting. I like the felting. It’s fabulous what you can do with fiber. And I love the business we’re in, trying to get people to be creative.”

So, what new ideas will Karin be bringing to Skacel?
“I’d like to know that!” Ingrid says, laughing.
“I’d like to bring a little bit of my personality,” Karin says, “which is a bit more whimsical, not so traditional, a bit more youthful. I’d like to bring some young blood in, new knitters, which is absolutely necessary to grow our business.

“We need to come up with innovative things for people to knit, we need to portray knitting in a new light. You don’t have to be an adult woman to love knitting. You can be a teenager, in your twenties, you can be a man.

“I get up every day and I can’t wait to come to work. My favorite part of the job is development: new ideas, new ways to do things, new products, like the new lace needles that knitters love.

“Then there are all the exciting new yarn possibilities: first there was bamboo, then soya (my sweater is a bamboo-soya mix), milk, now we’re talking crabs—you can make a pulp that you can turn into a fiber out of just about anything. It’ll be interesting to see what comes next. I’m very excited about our Artfelt paper that makes felting easier and quicker.”

“We were ready for a change,” Ingrid says. “The company is going in a bit of a different way, but her father and I have a lot of faith in her. We know things are going to work out.

“Hans is so happy to have her here, because now he can spend all the time he wants on his boat. And I’m turning seventy-six this year, so with Karin here, I’ll be semi-retired. It’s so good to have someone from the family at Skacel—it always makes such a difference in business.”

“What’s wonderful,” Karin says, “is that it’s not only me. There are so many other family members coming into the Knitting Universe, like Rob at Cascade Yarns. Did you know he’s our neighbor? He bought the house we built. I helped lay the carpets in that house, and now Rob lives there. We’re competitors, sure, but we’re also good friends.”

“The Skacels are Rob’s neighbor,” says Jean Dunbabin. “They’re such lovely people.” Jean, husband Bob, and son Rob are having their picture taken in front of Abraham Lincoln’s flagship, the USS Constitution at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor. In a colorful Cascade Yarns sweater, Rob looks every bit the Sales VP that he is.

Gulls circle overhead, a cool sea breeze blows, as Cascade Yarns President Bob Dunbabin relates his company’s beginnings: “We really entered this business through a chance meeting with a man who was looking for a US distributor.

“I was in the real estate business, knew nothing about yarn, but Jean and I decided to give it a try. We began importing yarns from England, but in quick succession, the manufacturers went out of business. I realized that we had to have our own brand so we could control the supply, or we’d go out of business ourselves.”

Was going from real estate to yarn a stretch?
“Jean and I had extensive exporting-importing experience,” Bob says, “importing carpets from India and Pakistan. We were new to the yarn business, but we knew about wool and quality.”

“Our first yarn was a DK,” Jean says, “and people kept asking, ‘What’s DK?’ So we realized we had an educational process in front of us: for ourselves and our customers.”

“In the beginning,” Bob says, “It was Jean, me, and a couple of employees. We didn’t even have a label printer—we wrote every label out by hand. We were the marketing, the shipping departments, and when the floor needed sweeping, we did that too. Then, another chance meeting at the Florence airport proved vital to our business—we happened to be at the right place at the right time—and our well-known Cascade 220 was the result. Today it’s available in hundreds of colors.”

“You learn an awful lot about color when you work with carpets,” Jean says. “You may have 20, 30 colors in a rug, and you need to see how they all work together, play against each other. A carpet is the ultimate color palette, and I applied my carpet color education to our yarn line.

“We stay with basic yarns, and don’t follow short-term color whims. We try to moderate, modify trends to fit our line, and we add colors we find exciting. That’s why our line has a wonderful, fairly intense, range of over 270 colors.”

“Jean’s color sense was validated by feedback from our shops,” Bob says. “We’ve learned early on that it’s so important to listen to your customers. And I learned one thing from a friend who was a CEO in a different industry: quality, service, price. Price is third, quality is what gets you in the door.”

As he crisscrosses the country, these are lessons Rob Dunbabin, Cascade Yarns VP of Sales, has taken to heart: “Last week,” he says, “I flew into Washington, D.C., around 11:00 p.m., just before the airport closed, and drove to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, about 2:30 a.m. Next day, I drove to Newark, New Jersey, then to Baltimore. And the day after, I started in Frederick, Maryland, drove to Manassas, Virginia, to Fredericksburg, Maryland, and down to Virginia Beach. Then back to Washington for the flight home to Seattle.”

Rob, who’ll be logging about 150,000 air miles this year, loves visiting stores. “Everyone is very friendly, welcoming, receptive,” he says. “I like showing our line, showing what Cascade has to offer. And I love the fact that for shop owners, yarn is not just a business: it’s their passion, their hobby, what they love. It’s hard not to like being in this business.”

But before yarn, there was the law. “I was sitting for the bar exam in Portland when the February 2001 earthquake hit Seattle,” Rob says. “My parents were in South America on business. We had to scramble to find a new location, because the building we were in was condemned: a stairwell collapsed, and the elevators were disabled. My dad rented two trucks; I drove one, he the other and on one weekend we packed up and moved to a new location. After working in Portland for a while, I returned to Seattle and to Cascade.

“I love working with our shops and reps in yarn development, hearing what works, what’s selling, understanding regional yarn preferences and individual shop needs. If I’m asked, ‘Why don’t you have this?’ My answer always is we’ll try to get it.”

“Shops love that our colors stay in our line. A few years ago, for example, we kept adding five or six variations to that hot pink. Then the oranges came in, and they’re still selling. Because we control our colors, within 90 days we can have any color available.”

“Rob is such a natural,” Jean says, “you’d think he had a degree in yarn, not law. He’s learning what shops need, what they’re looking for. That’s always the direction we’d like to take Cascade: if you don’t give people what they need, you’re not in business. We like developing new things, new ideas, but we always keep an eye on exactly what the marketplace is looking for.

“And, this year, he’s looking forward to meeting more of our end-users, the knitters at Stitches, to see all the creative things they do with our yarns. That will give him another perspective into our business.

“It’s so great having Rob with us. It’s hard for us not to talk about business when we get together as a family. But only because Cascade is such a big part of our life.”

Is it hard charting your own course with mom and dad at the wheel?
“Rob’s an attorney,” Jean says, “and he approaches everything in a lawyerly manner, logically, methodically. He has no problem defending his position! We usually reach a consensus by each presenting our ideas and making a decision.

“I must admit, sometimes it’s hard seeing your child as an adult,” Jean says, “but I love watching him interact with people. I see the growth of Rob in the business, and it makes me proud. And I love the fact that he looks at things differently. Sometimes you get in a rut about doing things a certain way. Sometimes it’s hard to step back and take a good, hard look. Fresh eyes are always good.

“It’s a nice feeling having our son at Cascade. It brings an added, richer, dimension to our relationship with him.”

“It’s great,” Rob says. “But when you work with your parents, the times you didn’t take out the garbage, or mow the lawn always come up.” He laughs. “But seriously, it’s a great job. There are challenges, but it’s also quite fun. Right now I’m focused on sales, am involved in yarn development with my dad, sharing marketing with my mother, and completely owning sales. My wife, Shannon, is involved in purchasing, so it’s really a family affair.

“By the way, will we see you at Pitti Filati in July?”

Rob is talking about the renowned Florence international exhibition that attracts yarn people from around the globe, including the Colinette Yarns (distributed by Unique Kolours) family from Wales. We were delighted to accept Colinette’s invitation to visit them in Umbria, just south of Florence. We recognized Colinette’s husband, the painter Geoff Sansbury, but who was this young man in tousled hair and black-framed glasses running toward us?

“Alexis, don’t you remember me?” It was Sam, the kid we last saw in Chicago so many years before. The bright young boy had grown up—and now was running the company. With Colinette’s husband, Geoff, joining us, we headed for an outdoor, hillside restaurant set amid olive and cypress groves, and surrounded by tall rosemary bushes. As we talked, the cook would dash outside to cut off a few aromatic stalks for our lunch.

Was Colinette surprised to see Sam follow her footsteps?
“Absolutely!” Colinette says. “But he’s grown up with yarn, hasn’t he? Both of my children have. My daughter Gabrielle has gone back to college to finish her master’s degree in textiles at the moment. You might see a few rugs and home furnishings appear. That’s somebody to look for in the next few years.
“Geoff and I would never impose that on either of our kids. They had to go and find their own way in the world first. But the paths sort of led back to yarn, somehow or other.

“Sam and Gabrielle grew up seeing yarn being dyed in the kitchen sink when we first started, seeing it drying, actually, on our roof in the early days. Of course, now that the business is much slicker, much more together, there are a lot more things to be organized and to be run. But we try to keep the philosophy the same.

“It’s interesting, it goes full circle, but it also spirals, if you’d like, it gears up a notch. And the new generation puts their own stamp, don’t they? Keeping the same philosophy.”

What does it feel like seeing your baby running the family business?
“Very proud, indeed. You see him handling problems and difficulties in a far more innovative way than I probably did. And bringing into it new designs and ideas. The great thing is that, as we get older, our energy tends to wane a bit. Of course, youth comes in with all these effervescent ideas that regenerate you in a way. So, by handing over, you in fact regain your youth.

“You have to detach, don’t you? The only way things will go forward is if you detach from it a bit. You’ll always be watching, always be trying to guide, but if you’re always on somebody’s shoulder the whole time they can’t move forward. You’ve got to allow people to make mistakes, but be ready to pick up and guide if necessary. Fortunately for us it hasn’t been necessary.

“It can’t ever be easy stopping work. I’ll never stop, I’m sure you won’t either, you’ll always be doing something, won’t you? And yarn has been my life, so it can mean that I’ll be able to concentrate on doing some more unique things which I hope will add to the appeal of Colinette yarns, so I’m excited.”

What makes Sam such a natural in the yarn business?
“I don’t know! But he’s got so many ideas bursting out of his ears. I sort of have to go, down boy, down, you can’t fit it all in at once. We will do it all, but there are only so many hours in the day, and he hasn’t quite realized that yet.”

“Well, that’s going to cost me a fortune to have mom say that much!” Sam says. “I thought I might have to slip her a few pounds, but it didn’t work out that way, she did it on her own.”

How did he decide to return to the family business?
“I went to London,” Sam says, “to acquire skills, what I call my tools for life. The Internet, the desktop publishing. Then I realized what these tools could do for Colinette Yarns. I was working for an ad agency and thought, hang on a second, what am I doing here? Why am I doing all this for them when really, we’ve got such great things in our business? Things I grew up with, things I know about, colorful, beautiful things I love?

“When I realized that, the penny dropped and I said to mom, how about I do this, how about I do that? And before I was really on board, I was already doing it. I put together our web site, started working on the books, and ideas started coming. And because Geoff is constantly painting, I’d say that’s it, there, that’s the color I want.

“Then it started snowballing to the point where you say, hang on a second, I’m here now. It was kind of a slow revolution, really. But it took being away from it three or four years, not doing it, to realize, OK, I can bring something to the table: like you, the technology side of it, the photography.

“And then, having got my toe in the water, I began taking more of a predominant role of working with yarn. Because that’s what we do. So I was learning all about the fibers, talking to Argentina, Peru, wherever.”

“So yes, my involvement with Colinette Yarns seriously started at age 24, but began at age 10, standing at Covent Garden, next to my mom who had only one jumper to sell. She’d card the wool, spin it, and my dad would say how about we try this color and that color? He’d put his artistic bend with color in, and mom would take the train to London and pull a piece of paper out of a hat to see if she got a stall or not for that day.

“Sometimes she’d pull her name out, and sometimes she wouldn’t, then she’d have to come back. The day she would get it, she’d be there selling. That’s how you start.”

What is it like working with mom?
“The six million dollar question! We’re both Tauruses, little bulls. Singularly, we can be very determined, but when you get two of us together sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. When it works, it’s just real plain sailing. It’s almost a telepathy thing. Other times, you’re in the ring and you say no, and you can argue your corner [case]. Those are also interesting times. It’s a little bit of both. Because of that, great things usually come out of it.

“But there’s not enough time. I can do this work in my sleep and still be refreshed. It’s a bit like playing a musical instrument. You never, ever, master it completely, and that’s what drives you to do the next thing.

“It’s all about imagination, all about doing new things. It’s all about keeping knitters inspired. Geoff is a painter, and Colinette and Geoff have worked closely together with their sense of color. He’s always going about making color edible. They’ve got to be good enough to eat, haven’t they, really. If you’re going to do a color, do something that is just like, I feel so hungry for that, if I eat it, it would be like having the best Pavlova or the best curry that replenishes your soul and then you go on.

“I’ve got my mom in one ear, and my sister Gabby in the other, all coming up with new ideas. And my father looking back with wisdom and knowledge, just painting away madly, saying, ‘Maybe you can change the color a bit, just there.’”

Next time we’re having Italian food, it’s pizza at Tomacelli’s, a favorite local parlor. Our XRX crew includes David Xenakis, Elaine Rowley, myself, and David’s son, Benjamin, the CEO of XRX Inc.

Benjamin, who’s my godson, was a teenager when XRX was born over pizza. A fresh-out-of-the-army second lieutenant asked, “Why don’t we publish our own magazine? How hard can it be?”

“We were extraordinarily fortunate,” David says, “to have the required skills: we needed an editor? We had Elaine, an ace knitter and yarn shop owner. We needed a photographer? Alexis picked up a camera. We needed someone with desktop skills to put ink on paper? With my interest in computers, I was well suited to that task.”

David’s computer experience included conjugating Latin verbs for our 7:00 a.m. college class on an IBM mainframe computer. Elaine’s editing skills were focused on the newsletter of her yarn shop, The Golden Fleece, a splash of color in the muted prairie. And my photographic skills? The were honed on a cheap little camera taking black-and-white snapshots. What is it they say about love and youth? Blindly we embarked on our XRX dream.

“And Benjamin,” David says, “has been part of the XRX picture since the beginning, when he was a child.”

But did anyone think, perhaps even hope, that Benjamin one day would join our adventure?
“Having been a farmer’s daughter,” Elaine says, “who didn’t become a farmer, I’m keenly aware that young people need to be able to find their own direction. I’ve never indulged in thinking about Benjamin and XRX, because my tendency would be to think, ‘Of course he’ll want to carry on, work harder, make it better.’ But it’s so wonderful that he did. Benjamin went out into the world, found good and bad, and chose to come back. And that’s the way you’d want it to be.”

“It was right before Italy, and you were all getting on the same plane,” Benjamin says. “I thought, what if something happened, and XRX had to be sold? For days, I couldn’t shake this strong emotional reaction. It turned my, and my family’s, plans upside down.”

And so Benjamin left work in the Silicon Valley for the place where once he used to clean the waxer and help ship magazines.

“It’s important for young people,” Elaine says, “to have gone outside the fold, to develop skills, confidence, their own perspective. That’s so important in giving them a real voice and some independence when they are back in the family business.

“What’s made this transition so easy is that Benjamin has always ‘gotten’ us, each of us. That’s probably the key. In the beginning of XRX, there were three individuals who shared responsibilities in a very loose and evolving way. Perhaps not the most efficient or effective approach, but one that allowed us each, almost thirty years later, to still find satisfaction and challenge in our work.”

“Benjamin is the perfect person to take over management of a company,” David says, “dedicated to providing its customers something useful and beautiful. Benjamin brings business acumen to XRX, while preserving the spirit that has meant so much to its founders.”

Is it easy letting go?
“Who’s let go?” asks Elaine says, laughing.

“It has been a joy watching Benjamin grow up,“ David says, “seeing the way he thinks, realizing that I don’t have to be his dad anymore. He’s confident, intelligent, better at handling some things than I ever was. So it’s not hard to let go, at all.”

“I’m riding the wave, coasting really,” Benjamin teases. “I hope you three don’t stop working too soon! Really, I have had the good fortune to work with a number of great companies, but, when you’re in business, there’s always that bottom line. What I love about XRX is that everything doesn’t come down to just dollars and cents.”

How many companies could justify sending their English-major-turned-photographer and his team galloping through the English countryside in search of the perfect locations for a book?

“When I first saw Victorian Lace TODAY,” Benjamin says, “I was so proud, couldn’t think of anything else the rest of the day, I was fascinated. That’s when you realize what it is that XRX is all about: so much talent, so many wonderful people; a product that consumers care about and are inspired by. Those moments I am truly inspired, energized, and I want to do my best.”

“Benjamin,” Elaine says, “gave our company a future. The bad news is Benjamin also gave me ten more years of productive life!”

“I love being back,” Benjamin says, “love the high technology and sophisticated aesthetic found right here, in Sioux Falls.

“I’m excited about the future. Everything is changing: our market; the way people deal with media; the way people interact with knitting content. We’re gearing up to be ready to meet those challenges. At the same time, we need to make sure that our traditional products keep pace, continue to be beautiful. For that, we need to give them the necessary attention and resources—there’s no auto pilot.”

Spoken like a true CEO.

“I now have three children of my own,” Benjamin says. “And sometimes I wonder, will there be another generation at XRX? Like Elaine, I don’t think I’m entitled to that, but the potential is so exciting.”