Kaffe, color, and Seth

Saturday night my husband and I went to a slide presentation by the

MASTER of color,

KAFFE FASSETT,

who is famous not only for his brilliant and complex quilting cottons, but also for his richly hued knits, needlepoint, paintings, and color combos in general. I bought his latest quilt book, nestled above in some of his fabric that I plan to embellish with embroidery and beads. The presentation was in a little high school auditorium on Vashon Island. Kaffe and his design partner, Brandon, have been on the island for several days of quilting and knitting workshops.

It was a much needed injection of color in our corner of the Northwest, as you can see by the next two photos, which I took on the bridge and from the ferry on our way over to the lecture. As the crow flies, the lecture was only about four or five miles from our house, but since we're not crows it was a one-and-a-half-hour GRAY, WET JOURNEY over the bridge, onto the ferry and through the woods.

Tacoma Narrows Bridge on Saturday at 3 p.m.

Inside our car on the Rhody Ferry from Tacoma to Vashon Island.

IT WAS SO WORTH IT:

This is some of the Kaffe Fassett fabric I bought from

Island Quilter,

the shop on Vashon that organized everything. That store is a MUST for anyone -- not just quilters and knitters -- who needs an injection of color during our interminable gray fall-winter-springs. The slide show was full of photos of tile work, weathered buildings, gardens and other slices of life from around the world that inform his work. But I thought his best comment was afterward, when someone in the audience asked if he could talk "a little bit" about color. He said he could talk forever about color, but that the best way to learn about it is to get outside and LOOK at things. He pointed out that color cannot be condensed into the color wheel, which is how I've always felt.

Here are orange flowers from the grocery store that I brought home a few weeks ago. Sorta similar feel to the fabric I bought last night.

A grocery store bouquet on my kitchen counter.

And here are some orange silk roses that I embroidered on my ongoing crazy quilt project:

Crazy quilt embroidery that I've been working on.

Continuing the orange flower theme, here's a detail of my kitchen tablecloth. You can probably guess my favorite color.

And this young man may be the next Kaffe Fassett:

  

 This is Seth, age 10, proudly displaying his very first quilt last week at the Gig Harbor Quilters meeting. His grandmother taught him to quilt over the summer, and he finished this colorful quilt in time to give it to his mom for her birthday. And he knits, too!

Have a colorful day!