Kaffe Fassett comes to town!

Hi LuLu,

October 9 was a red-letter day for me and for the oh-so-red Romeo & Juliet Coat! Here I am with Kaffe Fassett, his very own self. He's just autographed the page in my copy of "Glorious Color" which has the photo of THE coat. Afterwards, I thought, "Why, oh why, didn't I wear a fedora and strike the pose of model in the photo?" Ah well, next time.

Kaffe and his partner, Brandon Mabley, came to Vashon Island, near Seattle, to give workshops. Kaffe now teaches only quilting, while Brandon does the knitting classes. (Kaffe's comment during his evening slide show was that he no longer had the patience for knitting classes: he would have to wait hours for knitters to produce a few square inches of pattern for discussion--whereas quilters could cut out their shapes and in less than an hour have an entire quilt design up on the wall.)

I spent the day in Brandon's "Persian Poppies" class, and it was excellent. Just as Kaffe describes in "Glorious Color," , we chose lengths (1-2 m. each) of light colors, tying them into one long length of yarn, and then lengths of dark colors tied into a second long length. Brandon didn't suggest that the colors be in color-wheel sequence or in any sequence at all, but simply that they be "pleasant" neighbors rather than starkly contrasting. He warned us away from white and black and even ivory or charcoal.

And then we started knitting the Persian Poppy design. Some in the class hadn't knitted in years; some had never done colorwork. But Brandon was amazingly patient, and found things to teach, always very positive, from each person's work.

The poppies design calls for Fair Isle knitting, with two colors carried along simultaneously. Brandon preaches that colors should be carried no more than 1-2 stitches behind the work. I knew how to knit with a color over each hand, but from him I learned how to twist the carried yarn without having to pick up and put down the alternating colors. Whether knitting or purling! Whether the carried yarn is on my right hand or my left hand. WHAT a breakthrough! The two techniques for knitting are on the website of The Philospher's Yarn: http://www.philosopherswool.com/Pages/Twohandedvideo.htm And in Brandon's latest book, he briefly describes the two techniques for purling.

By the end of the day, here were the results:

Aren't the colors amazing? I was knitting a poppy with two pale shades of blue and aqua--pretty bland--and Brandon handed me a length of lime green. Perked that poppy right up!

And then, just to give us a fresh perspective, he flipped the flannel board upside down!

In the evening, Kaffe gave a Power Point presentation at the high school auditorium. He briefly told how he started -- dropping out of art school, leaving California for England, seeing yarn on a trip north and buying 20 different colors, learning to knit on the trainride home, taking his first sweater to Vogue.... And then we saw dozens of photos of his work -- a few early paintings and lots of knitting, needlepoint and quilts as well as the images that have inspired them. Of course he now designs fabric, but he's also done interior design, and even theater productions. He doesn't do much of the actual knitting or quilting anymore: he said he has too many ideas and there's too much to do. And now he's working on his autobiography.

After the applause, as Kaffe headed to the table for booksigning, I hastily put on my coat and joined the line, "Glorious Color" in hand. He did a little double-take when my turn came, asked me to spin around, signed the book, and agreed happily to pose for the photo.