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.

2012 Puyallup Fair Flash Mob Flash Back

          The last day of the 2012 Washington State Fair was Sunday, September 23. For me, this year the fair was all about music and dancing. It started with a fun band of crazy dancers for a flash mob on opening day (see previous 9/9/12 blog). That pretty much set the rhythm of the rest of the fair.

The following Sunday, John and I had barely put our suitcases down from a five-hour drive home across smoky from wildfires Washington when a friend offered us free tickets to the Enrique Iglesias concert at the fair. 

Enrique Iglesias

We giddy upped downtown for a concert full of surprises, and although the audience was definitely younger than us, I knew a lot of the songs from Zumba. The Spanish/Filipino heart throb, like his father before him, had the girls swooning. I had eaten breakfast with Sarah and John at WSU that morning, enjoyed a concert with John that night, and then blew out the candles on my birthday cake at home after the concert.

My third visit to the fair was for another concert, the Doobie Brothers. John's cancelled business trip meant we had to scramble for tickets at the last minute, but we got two in row two. Don Felder, a former Eagle, and his new band kicked off the concert. Hotel California, Already Gone, Life in the Fast Lane, Witchy Woman and other songs from our younger days spilled over the rockin’ audience in the Grand Stand.

Don Felder, from The Eagles.

The Doobie Brothers!

Then the Doobie Brothers took the stage. The audience was up on its feet again as we Listen(ed) to the Music. They played my favorite hits: Black Water, Long Train Running, China Grove, Takin’ It to the Streets, as we sang out loud and danced. The level of musicianship of Don Felder’s band and The Doobie Brothers was amazing. I saw the Doobies when I was in college. I feel so lucky that I got to see them again with John this time.

More music and dancing drew me through the turnstiles of the Gold Gate for the fourth time on Friday. My friend Vicki and I lucked out, finding a rare, free parking space on the street. As we walked toward the fairgrounds, she felt self-conscious wearing a hot pink jacket. I told her not to worry. People weren’t looking at her pink jacket. My crazy dancin’ pants were a much bigger distraction.

My crazy dancin' pants

In the VIP tent we met up with 170 other flash mobbing Pitbull fans dressed in pink and ready to dance! There were a few brave men sprinkled in with our amazing group of women who share an enthusiastic love of dancing. The “usual” characters: a duck, a couple of chickens, a small posse of cowboys, and a bevy of daffodil princesses joined us in the rehearsal. 

We laughed and clowned around in the bleachers while we waited for the signal for us to begin. Then we moved into our positions in the aisles facing the stage. When the guitar started the opening notes of “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy,” we turned to face the audience with our thumbs hooked in our real or imaginary pockets. Click on link for video: Pitbull flash mob Puyallup fair

Rosie, Vicki and I ready to flash mob

As we danced, people beamed smiles at us and pulled their phones out to record us. A couple near me tried to ignore us and find their seats. I warned them they’d be better off just sitting anywhere right then. We’d be done in 30 seconds. They could find their real seats then. Just like that we were done!

The back of our flash mob t-shirts.

The 253 Crew (253 is Puyallup’s area code) headed back to the bleachers, but not for long. In a few minutes, the lights blazed, the music hit us, and Mr. 305 (Miami’s area code), Pitbull took the stage. He brought us all to our feet and we surged up front to dance for the rest of the concert. 

Pitbull, Mr. 305, Mr. Worldwide!

An overwhelmed security guard kept us from getting too close, but he couldn’t put a lid on our Pitbull-mania. At Zumba that morning, our teachers had warmed us up for the concert with a full hour of Pitbull songs: I Know You Want Me (Calle Ocho), Give Me Everything, Back in Time. Now we were salsa-ing, samba-ing, shimmying and dancing in the moonlight to Pitbull, Mr. Worldwide, live! What an unforgettable, wild night shared with my sassy Zumba girlfriends.

My fifth, and last trip to the fair was to flash mob again on the closing day of the fair. Each time, the mob changed—different dancers, different schedules, different locations. This time I disguised myself as just another mild mannered fairgoer by standing in the scone line and fake texting on my phone. Fellow mobber, Linda, kept an eye out for where the mob leaders were so we’d be in the right place, at the right time. It was easy to spot the big characters, especially the duck.

It was really packed, so I was a little worried about how the crowd would get out of our way when we started dancing, but it worked. The sea of fairgoers parted and we did our dance. We “got our happy on” and the impromptu, smiling audience did too. Click on link for video: Closing day flash mob

It was the perfect finishing touch to wrap up the final flash mob with a rousing chorus of Do the Puyallup: 

All the people and the animals down at the fair,
They do the Puyallup like they didn’t have a care
And it looks like so much fun to do
I think I’m gonna learn how to do it too.

Oh you can do it at a trot,

You can do it at a gallop,
You can do it real slow so your heart won't palpitate.
Just don't be late.

Do the Puyallup!

Laura Keolanui Stark is finishing up the last of the baker’s dozen of fair scones and recovering. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com.

Flash Mob at the Puyallup Fair

September 7, 2012 was the opening day of the Puyallup Fair and it was a doozy! The weather was perfect, sunny and hot. That combined with free entry from 9 until noon if you brought a donation for the Puyallup food bank, meant that thousands (75,000 at last year’s opening day) headed for the fair.

My Zumba buddy Vicki and I thought we had the perfect plan to get around the traffic/parking problems. We were taking part in a top secret fair event, so we had a parking pass to one of the employee parking lots.

With half of the Puyallup streets closed, a trip downtown that usually takes less than 10 minutes stretched out to a frustrating hour. The fact that neither of us had bothered to find out exactly where the special parking lot was didn’t help. As the clock ticked closer to noon, we switched to Plan B and panic parked in a lady’s backyard for $10.

We didn’t have to report to our top secret fair event until 3:30, but killing time at the fair is not a problem. We crammed into the Americraft Showplex tried new skin care products, cut tomatoes with ceramic knives, and watched an expert make salsa.  We compared notes on what we’d each bought at past fairs, what worked, and what we were still using.

Outside in the sunshine, we chomped on hot, juicy roasted corn. I savored a pulled pork sandwich from Pete’s Barbecue. Vicki gobbled a turkey leg from Young Life.

At 3:30, we headed over to the VIP tent where Brenda from The Puyallup Fair (and Zumba) told us how to check everyone in for the secret event: a flash mob.

Vicki and I ready to check flash mobbers in.

A duck joins us to help the check-in process.

4:15: the first rehearsal. It went very well considering most of us had been practicing in different Zumba studios or at home individually by watching an instructional YouTube video: Puyallup Fair flash mob instructional video

4:30: the second rehearsal. Our leader, Kristyn from Zumba Maniacs tweaked how we’d flow onto “the stage.”  Things got a little more complicated when men on horseback and a giant duck were added to our dance troupe.

4:45: the final rehearsal. Good enough!

       Kristyn timed our group departures so that we’d slowly trickle out into the crowd, unnoticed. We milled around near the State Patrol building and the Americraft Showplex trying to look casual as rodeo cowboys and horses clomped by.

5:30: The opening guitar twangs of Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy started blasting from speakers turning one of the major intersections of the Puyallup Fair into a honky-tonk. 160 flash mobbers tucked our thumbs into our pockets (real and imaginary) and strutted our stuff across the asphalt. 

We Yee Hawed, grape vined, twirled, threw our hands up in the air, screamed with Usher, and did our best to Take Ova the “dance floor.”  Kids, grandmas, dads, costumed cowboys with built in horses, giant ducks, and sassy women, also known as flash mobbers, danced like crazy for four minutes, hooted and hollered, and then turned back into just your average fair-goers.

People watched the flash mob with grins on their faces. A few tried to join in. John did a great job videotaping us in action from the sidelines. Here’s the link:  Puyallup flash mob street view Look for me in my crimson Cougar t-shirt, skirt, and cowboy boots. Here's the fair's video of the mob: Puyallup fair flash mob

This year the Puyallup Fair’s slogan is “Get Your Happy On!” Woot! Woot! That’s exactly what did!

Laura Keolanui Stark crossed “Be part of a flash mob” off her bucket list. She can be reached at stark.laura.k@gmail.com. If you’d like be in the flash mob on closing day, go to The Puyallup Fair’s Facebook page and click on Events.