Kaffe's Classics, 25 glorious knitting designs.

The author, Kaffe Fassett, is legendary for his ground breaking use of color and design in fabric, knitting, needlepoint, patchwork, painting and mosaic.  

 

 He grew up in a wild place, Big Sur, on the coast of California, where his family built a restaurant on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  Movie stars and celebrities came from far and wide to go there.  It was very rugged and isolated. One of the cooks in the restaurant knit "dump sweaters" from yarn he unravelled from clothes he got from the dump. His mother and some family members also knit.  

 

 After getting a scholarship to The Boston Museum of Fine Arts School, he left after three months to visit London, England, and never returned to live in the US.  The Victoria and Albert Museum in London with all the textiles, and articles and history from around the world, has been a huge inspiration to him. 

 

 In 1988 Kaffe was the first living textile artist to have a one man show at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.  The exibition attracted such crowds that the Museum doubled attendance figures during the run and the exibition toured to nine countries.  

He went with fashion designer, Bill Gibb, to Scotland to visit a woolen mill and was so inspired by the colors of the landscape from the train on the way there. When he got to the woolen mill, he saw the same colors in the Sheland wool, so he bought 20 colors and some knitting needles.  On the train on the way back to London, he asked a woman if she knew how to knit, and if she would teach him.  She did and the rest is history.  The first design he created appeared as a full spread in Vogue Knitting Magazine.  

 

He designs for Rowan Yarn, and Ehrman Tapestries. Recently they have named  a Floribunda rose after him. This exquisite rose with shades of vivid hot pink and hints of deep lilac has a wonderful fragrance and thrives even in poor weather conditions. 

 

He has travelled the world photographing his work for over 50 publications, looking for the perfect backdrop for his latest collection of quilts. Locally, Kaffe's fabrics are available at Along Came Quilting, and Out of Hand in Calgary, and other stores. I love his work.