Making Pink RSC Sawtooth Stars

 I sorted out my pink scraps , don’t have many so I added chunks and FQs:

I used the scraps to make as many 4.5” Crumb blocks as possible. They made 6.

Then I pieced the Sawtooth Stars cutting from the larger pieces of fabric. I used a green with white polka dot fabric for the star points in two of the blocks to get a bit more contrast.

I am rather disappointed with these blocks, not enough contrast in them for my liking. But those were the pinks I had available so I worked with them.

I have been following Pat Sloan’s YouTube videos for some weeks now and really enjoying them. Yesterday I watched the interview she had on a site called Textile Talks. I enjoyed that video and then found an older one where Kaffe Fassett and his niece Erin were interviewed.

 It was fantastic! I am a Kaffe fan and have been lucky enough to meet him on a few occasions and also visited several of his exhibitions so I knew he was a multi talented guy - painting, knitting, cross stitch, patchwork and fabric design but this video blew me away! 

Something he said resonated with me.

Last Sunday was Mothering Sunday here in the UK and our daughter Caroline arranged for a local florist to deliver a pretty jar of flowers, all different pinks and purple blooms.

Kaffe said an artist he knew always painted vases of flowers when the flowers were almost dead because their colour was intensified. This intrigued me so I took another photo yesterday, a week after I received them and they are definitely on their last legs, but I do think the colours are more intense.

Aren’t we lucky to be able to watch videos such as these? Do watch if you can.

Linking up with Angela’s So Scrappy blog.

Kaffe Fassett exhibition

I had a delightful day on Saturday, visiting a Kaffe Fassett exhibition held in a National Trust property called Mottisfont in Hampshire. My best friend Barbara lives fairly near Mottisfont and she had heard about the exhibition.  We have visited a KF exhibition together before and we both love his work, the super bright colours, the way he puts vivid pieces of fabric next to each other and so on.

So, my photos:

Loved this HST quilt, the blues were just beautiful!

 

Another lovely blue one. A simple design but the use of such lovely fabrics makes it special. Barbara's favourite, I think. I loved it too!

 

 

Another snowball-style design, this time in richer colours. Both colourways worked for both of us.

 

 

Loved this sign , the words printed directly onto the wall.  Kaffe was born in California but moved to the UK as a young man and our country has been his home ever since. I think this shows his love for his adopted country, why it appeals to him.

 

The centre of a very floral quilt, showcasing a particularly beautiful flower fabric - like a still life painting.

 

 

As he said in the previous sign, Kaffe is fascinated by fruits and vegetables.  They appear in a lot of his work, including this chair upholstered in his tapestry work.  Look at those lush fruits!

 

Probably my favourite quilt as it uses colours I love. Again, a simple design which shows off his gorgeous fabrics.

 

A close up of the centre:

Another of our favourites. There was such an amazing range of fabrics in this quilt, including some that almost appeared to jar with the rest of the colours ( look at the 8 pointy stars made from black & lime green stripes and mustard yellow) and the hot pink and turquoise ones ( the addition of the hot pink jumps out and somehow draws your eye to both the centre and the outer edges of the quilt).
The clever placement of stars and hexagons made your eye dart about, sometimes making you notice the stars more, sometimes the hexagons. We looked in detail at this quilt for a very long time!

 

As you can see one of Kaffe's roll necked cardigan designs was exhibited alongside the quilt.  There was a lot of his knitwear on show - again all using his signature bright colours.

 

And lastly, two photos of his Folk lore quilt, naïve style pictures and shapes appliqued onto a cream coloured background.

 

 

Lots and lots more of course but I couldn't photograph everything.

The exhibition was so well organised, displaying his work beautifully.

Groups of quilts, interspersed with knitwear, tapestry etc were displayed in a series of rooms.  One of the room guides told us that Kaffe had insisted each room was painted a colour he specified: so there was a sky blue room, a hot raspberry pink, a sunshine yellow and  a Spring green one. Wooden chairs in each room had also been painted to match the colour scheme of the room, although in a different shade to the wall colour. The original wall colour in each room was Britain's favourite - magnolia - and Kaffe said if the rooms weren't painted to his specification he wouldn't allow the exhibition to be staged.  How right he was, these marvellous pieces wouldn't have been able to shine to their best advantage. Clever man!

 

Barbara and I have struggled this year to see each other - it took until 11th November to make this happen. I had a special birthday at the end of May and Barbara brought my birthday present with her which I had to open before we went into the exhibition. She had gifted me Kaffe's lovely Autobiography "Dreaming in Colour".  A perfect start to a wonderful day.

 

I was then told the "back story" to the present. Barbara had been struggling to think of the right present to mark my birthday but when we decided some weeks ago to visit the exhibition at Mottisfort she researched Kaffe Fassett books. Because she knew I was such a fan she guessed I would probably already have at least one of his books so she phoned my husband to ask him to search my bookshelves.  Apparently this wasn't achieved easily because time after time she rang and I answered!  Eventually she managed to speak to John and he was able to search my bookshelves whilst I was out. Great story, makes the book even more special. I haven't started the book yet but have already enjoyed the super picture on the dust jacket: Kaffe sitting cross legged on one of his bright pink quilts, surrounded by colourful pots of plants, another bright pink quilt as a background and holding a bright pink flowered wreath.  Marvellous!

 

 

 

Kaffe Fassett excitement

I love Kaffe Fassett!  I have been a follower for many years: having been lucky enough to hear him speak,attend a couple of 'Show and Tell' type of evenings when he discussed various pieces of his work, visited two of his exhibitions (in London & York), and bumped into him on several occasions over the years.

As Kaffe is originally a trained artist he views colours and patterns with an artist's eye, so different from my view of the world as I am definitely NOT an artist. I love art and can appreciate it but I cannot draw or paint.  My cousin Paul is an artist - as was his father, my uncle - and years ago I marvelled at how he remembered our living room, how it had been many years ago, now altered and looking quite different.  Paul reminded me that he looks at everything very carefully - he "observes" and those ideas are locked into his head.

So, I was very excited to catch Kaffe's tour of his Gallery at last week's Festival of Quilts.
The collection of quilts comprised quilts and quilt tops that Kaffe has purchased over the years.
He picked out some which had been the inspiration for new quilts which are in his new book
Bold Blooms.
Kaffe walked us around the Gallery, pointing out the things in each quilt which fascinate and excite him and lead him to create a new quilt design.

For instance: Handkerchief Corners Quilt

 

 

 

The aspect of this quilt which jumped out at Kaffe - and his audience once it had been pointed out to us - was the high contrast between the rounds of the log cabin blocks.  The blocks have been assembled in rows to emphasise that: light, then dark as the outer row as you look along the row of blocks.

So, he ran with that idea to create High Contrast Squares:

 

 

 

Floral Octagons was inspired by a French quilt:

 

 

Lattice with Vases is another new quilt from his book "Bold Blooms":

 

Now a few of his collected quilts which particularly appealed to me:

Pastel trip Around the World

 

Pink Spider Web:

 

Satin Hexagon Quilt:

 

and a Close up

 

Pastel Lozenge:

 

 

 

Kaffe drew our attention to this quilt which he essentially sees as "grey" with the amazing small pops

of colour which bring the quilt to life.  He particularly loved the use of small scraps of striped fabrics.

 

And lastly the most amazingly coloured and busy quilt I have ever seen. 

 Kaffe says although he has studied this quilt endless times he still hasn't figured out how the blocks were constructed, what the pattern actually was. And I'm sure I couldn't. He described the quilt as "madness" but so appealing.  I agree, you could look at it for ages and still see new things which you hadn't noticed before.

 

Kaleidoscope: Wacky & obsessive with a swirling palette of colours:

And a Close up. Kaffe pointed out the symmetry of the flowered fabrics, the flowers cut in half and positioned either side of the torpedo-shaped detail:

 

 

Thank you for "Making my Day". Kaffe. I learned a lot.  Check out Kaffe's new book Bold Blooms

which features his glorious flowers so bright and cheerful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Kaffe Fassett - Part II - eventually!

No chance to write the second part of my visit to the Kaffe Fassett Exhibition until yesterday as we had friends staying until Monday.

Then I spent ages yesterday evening trying to open my blog account with no success and much frustration on my part. It kept coming up with error messages.

I had not had a good day with "things"! First of all my iPad would open my Google mail  emails but not my Yahoo ones.  Eventually I asked my husband to help and he managed to sort out the problem.
Then I went to my granddaughter's school to yarn bomb another tree.  That was done and I enjoyed it except for the temperatures which were more like winter, not nice for working outside. I tried to photograph all three yarn bombed trees and the camera didn't work again.  DH had sorted it from last week when it failed whilst I was trying to photograph the first two trees but it appears he had slid across some button which didn't allow the camara to work AGAIN yesterday.  So then when I couldn't get into my blog last night I was completely fed up with all things technical.

However, here are the rest of my photos from last week's visit to York:

Firstly a close up of KF's Organic Radiation: based on Hearts and Crosses 

Then 2 corners of KF's Trip around the World: based on Diamond Medallion Top 1790 - 1860

A rather blurred close up of KF's Hot Wheels: based on Wheels Quilt 1850 - 1900

 

Close up of the centre of KF's Diamond Jubilee Quilt: 

 

which was based on this quilt: Cartwright Hexagon Coverlet 1865

And two close ups of KF's Autumn Crosses: based on a log cabin called the
Elderton Log Cabin Coverlet c. 1890

 

The original Log Cabin was red, white and cream, the blocks arranged in groups of four with the cream logs to the centre.

This was what Kaffe had honed in on, as the creams said "crosses" to him, hence the crosses.

His quilt was so effective in those delicious citrus colours. Interestingly once I had looked at his "Crosses" version and then looked back at the original quilt, the cream "crosses" jumped out at me too.

And finally, a close up of the centre of the quilt I began this post with, KF's Organic Radiation.

 

So, to sum up, some gorgeous KF quilts, in his signature bright glowing strong colours side by side with the original historical quilts which had inspired him.  It was very interesting to see which element of the original quilt he had made the focus for his version. Of course the sewing skills in the old quilts were amazing, tiny tiny hand stitches were unbelievable.

 

My favourite KF quilt was Hot Wheels, followed closely by Autumn Crosses.  Both of my friends chose the same ones as favourite - Diamond Jubilee followed by Trip around the World.

 

So do go to York if you can, you will not be disappointed.

 

Ancestral Gifts

15 May - 12 September 2015

Quilt Museum and Gallery, York

 

Reduced admission price for Quilters' Guild members so remember to take your card.

Kaffe Fassett Exhibition in York

What a wonderful day I had yesterday!

Two very dear quilting friends and I travelled up to York by train. Almost 3 hour journey on the way up, a little less on the way home. Both journeys very easy and pleasant and passed quickly as we chatted to each other and read.

I hadn't been to York for some years so it was lovely to be walking along such old streets (some pavements are still cobbled), looking at interesting shops, finding places to eat lunch and have tea before we came home.

El Piano was a most eclectic restaurant suggested by the lady in the Information Office. On the way we discovered a great shop Maude and Tommy which we returned to after our Exhibition trip.
All the food in El Piano was vegetarian which all three of us enjoy and we were not disappointed! I had a lovely veggie burger with a deliciously spicy tomato and coriander salad, couscous and "mathematical chips - square roots" which turned out to be square cut roasted potatoes in their skins with chunks of baked carrot.  All quite delicious, reasonably priced and a good sized portion - I couldn't finish it all.

Then re-fuelled, off we went to find The Quilters' Guild  QUILT MUSEUM AND GALLERY  housed in the delightful medieval St Anthony's Hall. I had seen pictures of the hall in the Quilter's Guild magazine but hadn't realised the beamed domed gallery was on the first floor.

Kaffe Fassett, Patron of the Quilters' Guild had worked with the Gallery, exploring their historic collection of quilts. He chose 15 quilts, dating from 1790 - 1940 which called out to him for various reasons and then used each quilt as inspiration for his modern 'take", using his own beautiful brightly coloured fabrics to create 15 new quilts.

The result is superb! beautifully hung in this lofty gallery, each new quilt beside or hung across or above the original quilt which Kaffe had used as his inspiration.  As a longtime Kaffe Fassett fan the exhibition just sang to me.

Photographs were very generously allowed as long as flash was not used.  this presented a difficulty for me as I didn't know how to turn off the flash.  One of the attendants helped me, managed to trick the camera for a couple of shots and then the wretched automatic flash returned.  A phone call to my husband who initially couldn't remember what to do, then he rang me back with an idea. it worked but it was almost closing time so a few very hurried snaps were taken!

So, a few photos to give you an idea of what we saw:

KF's BRIGHT SQUARES based on Small Squares Top c 1930

 

 

Ridehalgh Quilt 1860_1890

 

Paired with KF's SNOWBALL CRISSCROSS:

 

 

 

Hearts and crosses coverlet 1875 - 1900

 

 

 

 

Help!  Running out of time. Have to get going to my Patchwork Group meeting.  Will come back later today with the rest of my post about this wonderful exhibition.