Designing with Kaffe Fasset

Who is Kaffe Fassett? Kaffe Fassett (rhymes with “safe asset") “is widely acknowledged as a visionary in the use of color and was the first living textile designer to have a one-person show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. He is a fabric designer for Rowan Patchwork & Quilting, the primary knitwear designer for Rowan Yarns, and the author of fifteen books. His work is in the permanent collections of numerous museums.” -–Dreaming in Color, An Autobiography.

Kaffe Fassett’s gorgeous, vibrant fabrics with their highly saturated glowing colors are what caught my attention. The fact that he was a painter before he started designing fabric is reflected in his large scale botanical prints that can range from lushly tropical to soft and dusty. Throw in ethnic inspired, patterns, stripes and geometric prints and you’ve got the unique palette that is Kaffe Fassett’s.

     In March while I was buying up yards of Kaffe Fassett fabric in Island Quilter’s booth at the Sewing & Stitchery Expo, the woman who was cutting my fabric mentioned that Kaffe said their quilt shop had more of his fabric than any other store he’d visited.

 

Wow! He’d visited her store? She explained that he had taught workshops at her shop on nearby Vashon Island, and they hoped he’d come back to teach more. I immediately added my email address to their list and asked her to tell me if he was coming back to teach another workshop.

In September I opened an email message from Island Quilter listing a series of Kaffe Fassett’s workshops and lectures. I told John I knew exactly what I wanted for my birthday. I jumped at the chance to learn how Kaffe Fassett creates his signature quilts that are a controlled riot of color.

The October morning of the class got off to a rocky start for me. In Tacoma I took the wrong fork in the road and that made all the difference for a stress filled, haphazard dash for the Pt. Defiance ferry. I skidded aboard the ferry James Bond style just in time to watch them raise the ramp in my rearview mirror.

Last car on board!

My stress had given way to anticipation by the time I lugged my shopping bag packed with Kaffe Fassett fabrics and quilting tools through the doors of Island Quilter. I was happy setting up because I had a table all to myself—until after class started when a late comer showed up.

My “tablemate” wasn’t the friendliest gal, and she had lots of company among the 30 women attending. When my kids were little, they observed that there are two types of quilting ladies: the warm and fuzzy ones, and the mean, grouchy ones. A high percentage of the women near me were the second type.

The quilt we were working on was Bordered Diamonds, from the book Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts. You’d be hard pressed to find a muted fabric in that book, or in any of the fabrics designed by Kaffe or Brandon Mably, his studio manager who was also teaching the workshop.

       That’s why it surprised me to hear other quilters talk about how uncomfortable they were with bold colors, that they felt safer with neutrals. One person chose to make their quilt out of black and white fabrics with just a few added colors. One used traditional Christmas fabrics. Kaffe and Brandon were more accommodating than I would have been.

Others dug their heels in when Kaffe and Brandon told them how to improve the impact of their designs. They got defensive about any criticism. I've got a thicker skin. I had an open mind, and agreed with most of their advice although I didn’t to do everything they suggested. For example, Brandon told me that one of my blocks was “too tasteful.” I heard what he was saying, but kept it in the mix. Later, Kaffe came by and focused right in on that particular block. He said that he “loved how elegant” it was.  

My "tastefully elegant" block.

I must have understood what they were saying on some level because Kaffe and Brandon didn’t spend a lot of time holding my hand or wrestling with me over my choices. I went to the workshop to learn, to try new things, to expand my horizon, and to get a feel for how they designed quilts. What’s the point of paying $175 and spending an entire day with expert teachers, if you’re only going to argue with their advice?

The owners and workers at Island Quilter were helpful and witty too. They got to know me pretty well because I kept raiding the shelves of fabric after spotting gorgeous fabrics on other peoples’ design walls, or not having the right fabric in my bag of tricks. I had quite the respectable tab running.

      They provided us with tasty cookies and cake to nibble on including some that were gluten free, and a choice of tea or coffee to sip. They also kept the music playing—mostly Beatles, which was fitting since Kaffe and Brandon live in England.      

      I was surprised when they announced that it was time for lunch, but pleased to come up for air. Lunch was catered two doors down at Express Cuisine.  Jim, the owner and chef, prepared salad, fresh fruit, homemade chicken soup, and hearty bread warm from the oven. Over the delicious meal my fellow quilters and I compared notes on our progress, and talked about the first quilts we’d ever made.

On the short walk back to the shop, soft, misty rain cleared my mind. Inside, I got back to “work” auditioning borders around the diamonds I’d cut.  Kaffe and Brandon reminded me to step far back from the design wall and use my reducing glass (the opposite of a magnifying glass) to really “see” my quilt top. They made suggestions about different fabric combinations, encouraging us to think of the borders as frames that should showcase the large scale print diamonds.

Kaffe Fassett

A half an hour before we were supposed to wrap things up, Kaffe looked at my wall of scattered diamonds, some with borders, lots without, and panicked. “You need to have all this white space covered. Why don’t you have borders on these? You’re not going to make it in time! You keep cutting! I’ll pin these up for you.”

I was touched that he jumped in to help me. I wasn’t as concerned as he was. After all, I’d made it onto the ferry in the nick of time. I regularly do some of my best work while maxing out deadlines. 

Kaffe moved on to help someone else, but he had lit a fire under me. I got serious. Any diamonds that I hadn’t found a border for, I plucked from the design wall and threw into a pile on the table. Then I stood back and arranged what was left, tightening it up so that the off white flannel underneath didn’t show. 

Back at the cutting table I picked out my favorite diamonds from the “orphan” pile and shuffled through different borders. In ten minutes I added four more bordered diamonds to the wall, for a total of 26. (The finished quilt will have 50 unless I decide to change the size.)

My "finished" design.

Kaffe came back to check on me. He was stunned. “You must have roller skates on! How did you get all this done? You’ve been hiding your light under a basket!”

I had a few minutes to tidy up before Kaffe and Brandon started critiquing the quilt designs each of us had created.

The “vibe” had changed.  Most of us were mentally exhausted, but pleased with the results we’d produced. Every quilt was unique and reflected each quilter’s vision. They were dazzling. 

Brandon critiques one of the designs.

One was dark with jewel colored fabrics framed by fabrics that made the diamonds pop. The quilt next to it was pastel and looked like a breath of spring. To my surprise, the Christmas one, and the black and white one also worked. Mine has vibrant, dark fuchsias, purples, and greens with a few light, dusty diamonds sprinkled in like dappled sunlight. In the video below, Kaffe explains what he thinks of it.

Kaffe points out what works in this design.

Python print border.

"Big flower" jumping out.

I listened intently to their critiques of 30 quilts. There is no magical Fassett formula to follow, but their critiques stretched my ideas of which fabrics play well together, and they inspired me to make the same or a similar quilt in different color schemes sometime in the future.

Afterwards, Kaffe and Brandon autographed their books for us. We unpinned the flannel from our Styrofoam™ “walls” and carefully rolled the flannel up with our diamonds and borders inside. My bag was not nearly as neat walking out of the doors of Island Quilter as it was walking in. It was a little heavier too. I settled my tab and headed toward the ferry.

Today I unfurled the flannel and pinned the rainbow of bordered diamonds on my design wall at home. I’ll add more diamonds, stand back to get the full effect of them, rearrange them, and eventually stitch them all together. Kaffe and Brandon taught me new ways to think about color and how to “paint” a quilt. I hope I can make their lessons shine through in my quilt.

Laura Keolanui Stark is cutting, arranging and re-arranging hundreds (thousands?) of pieces of beautiful fabric. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.