Kaffe Fassett - A Love Affair with Color

Did you know Kaffe Fassett designed clothes for Barbara Streisand? Me Neither.
My first introduction to Kaffe was through Rowan yarns during my knitting days. I had no idea he was a haute couture fashion designer, a needle point designer, as well as a fabric designer.

So over the years I have used some of Kaffe's fabrics and have become more enamored with it.  I made this Convergence Quilt called Ricky Tims Meets Kaffe Fassett back in 2013 with Kaffe and Brandon's fabrics.  But starting in Fall 2016, I really kicked up my love affair with Kaffe's fabric up a notch.

First I joined Kaffe club from Charlotte's Sew Natural - I get 6 half yard cuts of Kaffe Collection (Kaffe, Brandon Mably, and Phillip Jacobs) fabric once a quarter.  I am anxiously awaiting my second shipment. Now Kaffe Collection fabrics have their own shelf on my fat quarter spinner rack!

Second, I joined the Kaffe Club at Sarah's Fabrics. We meet once a month on the first Saturday at Sarah's. Each month there are challenges - pertaining to fabrics, colors, or patterns. I haven't done any yet, but have fabric and plans to do the flying geese challenge.

Third, I had the definite pleasure to hear a lecture and take a workshop with Kaffe and Brandon hosted by Sarah's Fabrics on October 4th and 5th.


The workshop was awesome! Kaffe took some of us shopping in Sarah's to get just the right fabrics for our zig zag quilt.  We all did the same pattern from Kaffe's book Quilts In Italy. The pattern is quite simple but it's the fabrics that make it outstanding. We all used very different colorways. I choose soft blues and greens to evoke the feeling of the Italian coast.  We only did cutting and arranging during the workshop. I have most of my quilt sewn together now. 


Sarah's is having a show of all the workshop quilts on Friday January 27, 2017. Since I'm traveling, I don't think I'll have my quilt done in time to hang. Too bad! But I'm going to go and see all the completed quilts. I'll add some pics in a blog update so you can see some of the other colorways.

Curious about color? Check out the Kaffe Collective!

Creating with Friends - Our Round Robin Challenge

Last week, the bi-monthly gathering of my small quilt group was at my new home.  We had such fun! We got to enjoy my new quilting studio as well as each others' company.

This group of women have been meeting for years, but I just joined them a couple of years ago. They have been friends, creative partners, shopping buddies, teachers, and inspiration. I eagerly look forward to our get-togethers.

Last year, at one of our gatherings, we talked about the various challenges and experiences we wanted to try. Only one of us had participated in a round robin, so we decided we should have a go.

Our "rules":
1. There really are no rules.
2. We each make a block that serves as the inspiration and foundation for the quilt.  We could include any fabric we wanted and then the subsequent quilters could add fabric.
3. We would give ourselves a pen name and a back story.
4. We won't see the progress on our own block until its done.

What an experience! I felt like there was even more pressure to do a good job when you're working on another quilter's quilt. Each block was so different and each addition to it added so much character. We did a variety of piecing, applique, and embellishments. The styles were traditional, fun and funky, and improvisational.


I started with an applique block from a workshop by Kathy Delaney. I knew I would not make the remaining blocks but I wanted to do something with this one, so I thought it would be a good beginning for the round robin.


After six rounds, here is what my block looked like.

I am getting ready to quilt it and will share pics when I get it done. 

I'm curious, what are your experiences with Round Robins? Post a comment and let me know.
Happy Quilting!

Another Great Program at KVQG - Peg Parnell

KVQG monthly meeting was earlier this week. With each speaker comes new insights, experiences and techniques. Peg Pennell was no exception. Coming to us from near Omaha Nebraska, Peg described her history with quilt challenges - in fact she admits to being a "challenge junkie". It really resonates with me when people have a focus or something they return to again and again. I think I like it because that's not me.

Peg took up the gauntlet from the many (6?) guilds she belongs to and completed the challenges with flair - sometimes challenging the challengers with unusual shapes and other rule bending. For each challenge she set herself a personal challenge to learn and practice some new technique. This is way cool in my book. I also loved how she collected fabric, embellishments, sayings and doo-dads that related to the quilt she was working on.

I love Peg's sense of color - "Lime green in my go-to neutral", and her technique for stretching small pieces of fabric by slashing and inserting another fabric.

So, here is what I'm taking away from Peg's presentation - challenge yourself to learn and try new things, dont be afraid to "break the rules" and embellishments sometimes make the quilt.
 Keep up the Curiosity!