Come for the Color. Stay for the Creativity.

What I think about when I think about Kaffe Fassett is color.

Yes, yes. I know. That is what Fassett is known for. It’s not new to associate this designer with his exuberant use of the entire rainbow. There is much muchness there.

Take, for instance, the pink pillow wall in the header picture. I haven’t made a forensic study of each and every fabric but I’m pretty sure there is no color on the entire wheel left unrepresented. Kaffe’s work is inclusive of all of the hues and shades our eyes can see.

Which I find amazing, given my own approach to color, which is to say, I’m a little afraid of getting too far beyond the occasional random pop of something fun. I like an acid green against my battleship gray but that’s as wild as I get. I don’t know that I could live with one of those pillows on the pink pillow wall but I sure do like looking at them.

The colors in the Garter Stripe Shawl from MDK Field Guide No. 13: Master Class don’t speak to me as individuals. I wouldn’t choose to make something from them, if saw a big ol’ heap of them on a shelf. Together, however, they are greater than the sum of their parts and it took an artist connect them this way. I suspect there’s a metaphor in there somewhere.

What I want is to know more about how Kaffe’s mind makes those connections in the hundreds of other designs and fabrics and paintings he’s made. His way of seeing the world is so sideways from my own that I’m fascinated by what he has to say, both visually and in-person.

Ann and Kay have waxed rhapsodic about Fassett’s work over the years. They’ve taken great joy from meeting the man himself and knitting his creations.

Kay, Kaffe, Ann, and some guy in ermine: all royalty in certain circles.

And I get the joy. I do.

But that’s not where I’m coming from.  I’m looking forward to Fassett’s livestream tomorrow not because I’m in love with his work but because I want to know how he got from one place to the other, on a path no one but him could take.

That individuality of expression is what makes him a true artist—and you don’t get to hear about that journey from the artist himself all that often.

Will a dose of creativity and inspiration cause me to start a Big Flower Jacket? Unlikely. I promise, however, that it will shift my perception in dozens of different (and unpredictable) ways. For me, that’s it’s own joy, because I have no idea what fruit it might bear.

Live, Laugh, Log Cabin

Ann and Kay have cooked up a Knit Stars class all about log cabin knitting, a way of knitting that can fill a lifetime of endless fun. Enrollment is open now, and the classes launch in November. Come see what the fuss is about!