An evening with Kaffe Fassett

I recently had the opportunity to go to a lecture K. Fassett held at the City University in London. He gave a talk on colour that was organized by the 'Colour Group'  who are interested in aspects of colour - its perception, measurement, reproduction and artistic expression. They hold monthly meetings throughout the academic year and organize lectures on colour. I am not a member of this group but they do sound interesting.

Given that this is all about K. Fassett I should really pepper this post with images of colour and his creations but alas I won't. For one reason because I don't have any images of the slides he showed and I don't want to "grope" around the net to find similar ones. I will add a few images of my own K.Fasset creations but the main intent of this little post is to share with you what I learned from his lecture.

When I started quilting three years ago the first fabric I bought was K. Fassett and Philip Jacobs to make a baby quilts in colours or red and blue and like many other quilters I utterly fell in love with the vibrancy and intensity of his creations.

Luca's quilt

Since I made two more quilts entirely from K. Fasset fabric and several others where his fabrics feature amongst others. Although his colours are super intense and sometimes feel a little to much while working with them, I do always come back to K.Fasset fabrics. Frankly the 'Geranium' print in duck egg on the back of my 'Botanica' quilt is one of my all-time favorite prints.

Botanica

So here is what I took away from the lecture:

• Very few young people were at the lectures and most of the audience were around my age and upwards
• There were five ladies sitting behind me knitting and having dead serious discussion about the knitting progress - somehow I thought that this little knitting group is not much fun....
• K.Fassett sees colour everywhere and his slide show made me realize that we forget to see colour when we rush around going about our busy lives. He showed us slides mainly from his travels and really all had wonderful colour in them. I am sure he didn't go hunting for any of the images. This was normal everyday stuff; colorful plastic crates stacked up outside a shop, a market, house fronts, doors etc... I think the lesson to take away here is to be a bit more conscious when walking around and perhaps pause every now and then to "take colour" in
• He is a professional in every sense of the word
• He is driven and focused and I very much like that
• He not only designs fabric and wool and makes quilts and knits. No he also makes mosaics, needlework tapestries (huge pieces !!) and paintings
• He started of without colour. Yep, no colour, just white and neutrals. Colour eventually started to creep into his paintings until there was no holding bac
• He is a fast worker and I like that even more. He was asked by somebody in the audience how he manages to make all these beautiful things and how many people he has helping him. His answer was: "I can do a lot in a day because I don't have a nagging husband and crying children". He added that he has of course people who work with him but that creating things himself is his job and he can dedicate all his time to it because he has got people who take care of everything else (computer, travel, admin...) Pretty cool I dare say and would that not be every quilter's dream ?
• K. Fasset only hand stitches and hand knits, he does not use machines of any kind
• He knows how to market himself but I found the super frequent mentioning of his books a little annoying
• He's got a great sense of humor
• K. Fasset is 75 years old and there is no sign of stopping him - now that is impressive
• When he works with printers in the industry then the colour pallets he can use are often limited due to technical reason. He says that limitation can increase creativity
• He was born around Big Sur in California which is near Carmel and Monterey and is absolutely gorgeous and I could not understand why he lives in the UK but he said he fell in love with the place when he visited Scotland the first time. The colour he saw there bowled him over. And that is actually true, Scotland in Summer is just something else.
• I think the more grey he sees (and let's face it there are many shades of grey during our long winter) the more colour he sees and creates - it's part of his creative process
• He loves vibrancy and contrast
• He is not interested in colour theory or colour wheels or any of the theory around it (bit amusing given that he was presented with a medal for colour achievements by a group that seems to be very keen on colour wheels!)
• K. Fassett lives with his partner Brandon in North London and together they travel the world which must be fantastic

Flowers and Stars

Stash Note 77

The other day a wonderful little package curtsey of Annie at the Village Haberdashery arrived at Needles and Lemons Headquarters.

This is the aqua colourway of Tula Pink's new line 'Salt Water'.

I love everything about this line; the subtle blues, greens and greys and the wonderful pattern too. Generous as Annie is she added two matching Kona cottons; aqua and nightfall.
 

We have a special project planed for this but I can't reveal it just jet.

Enjoy your Sunday and happy sewing.

On point - a finished quilt

So I finished the quilt and what can I say, I love it.

I used the Kikoi fabric and some of K. Fassett's stripes and juxtaposed these with Longshott Oakshott fabrics and created 9 patch blocks for which each square was cut on point. Originally I had thought to set each 9-patch block on point too but that turned out to be a little to much so I chose for a straight arrangement.

The backing fabric is a large piece of a K. Fassett print from a few seasons ago that I still had in stock and which I supplemented with a few stirps of solids in turquoise, red, orange and black from a Kona and Freespirit Designer Solids. It really works well with all the colours on the front.

I quilted in simple diagonal lines to give  the quilt stability and used variegated Guetermann Sulky threads in two different shades. For the top a thread with more greens and for the bottom one with more orange and red. I wanted the thread the blend in rather than stand out as a white or off-white thread  would have done.

For the binding I wanted to use something fun and light, yet complimentary to the overall colours of the quilt so I opted for a gingham in orange and white that I ordered at Frumble fabrics.  I am really pleased with the choice as it give the quilt a little lift.

All the fabrics used in this quilt are woven and cutting them on the bias (or on point) was a little challenging but it worked out much better than I thought. The key was to work quickly and precise and to sew the 9-patches together speedy rather than moving the pieces about forever.
The quilt measures 64" x 74" (1.63 x 1.88) which is a good sofa quilt size in my opinion.

Please find previous posts on this quilt here, here and here and if the quilt is for sale in my Etsy shop.

On-point -work in progress-

I normally don't give that many update throughout the progress of a quilt-in-making but this one is so special and so vibrant that I can't help myself photographing it all the time.

Hopefully this isn't getting to boring for you and the next post about it will be the finishing line.
Promise !!

Stash Note 76

I am taking a leaf out of Rita from Red Pepper quilt and ordered a bunch of striped vintage linen fat quarters. I have long been smitten with these fabrics and have been keen to get my hands on them. Oh and they are so so soft.

I rather like the idea that these fabrics have been bed linens in their former life and will in actual fact be made into a quilt that might end up on a bed again - sort of full circle.

Some Blues and some multis.

These were bought at thoughandfound and shabby sheets. Both are Etsy shops.

On point- a little peek-

TGIF.
I just wanted to pop in and say thank you for the massive interest you guys are showing in my new quilt. It has given me a lot of much needed encouragement and a bit of pressure actually.

So here is a little peek of my work-in-progress.

Aren't these two particularly delicious ?

I can't wait for the weekend to start so I can get stuck into these.

On Point - a new start-

I forcefully jolted myself out of my lethargic, motivation-less state and started a new quilt. I got up from the sofa on Friday evening gave myself a kick in the b*** and started cutting.
Quelle surpise, it worked and thank goodness for that as I was beginning to seriously wonder if I had lost the quilting mojo for good.

When I came back from Zanzibar some 10 days ago I brought back some traditionally handwoven Swahili Kikoi that are worn all over Africa. The fabric is a 100 % cotton and usually made in vibrant beautiful colour combinations and as you can see with lots of stripes.

They are beautiful to the touch, very soft and "strokeable". I already had some from previous visits but wanted to get a few more with an idea for a quilt lurking in the back of my mind.
 

I must have acres of striped fabric in my stash and it is about time I'd do something with it. So my idea is to combine the Kikoi with a variety of Oakshott stripes. I am thinking to combine the colourful stripes with the more subtle stripes to a achieve contrast and all of that on point.

I somehow think I have my work cut out.

Stash Note 75

It's Sunday and time for a Stash Note. I tried to resist for a while the allure of Architexture by Carline Friedlander but in the end gave up and bought the collection. By the time I got around most were already gone but I still managed to buy all  colourways with the exception of one print at Lola Pink Fabric and the Eclectic Maker.  

 

This is a wonderful collection and  has a great mix of neutral soft colour combined with strong contrasty colours. A combination we don't see that often. Not seen here are the blues which I order at the Eclectic Maker separately.