"I was born in California in a coastal community of artists and pioneering types. My parents built a Frank Lloyd Wright inspired restaurant 800 feet above the Pacific Ocean.

Though it was isolated community, I was encourages to express my artistic side, so painted, danced and did drama. I got a scholarship to a good old fashioned art school in Boston so lived and studied there for a few years before visiting London for a 3 month vacation. More than 40 years later I find myself still here mainly because I discovered knitting yarns in a mill in Inverness and got a fellow passenger to teach me to knit on the train ride back to London. I put all 20 colours of Shetland yarns I had purchased in the same sweater and took it straight to Vogue Magazine to ask them if they would be interested in featuring it. Reticent English, I wasn’t!!

That was about 1969 and all the colour in a very landscape Stripe attracted the attention of Judy Brittain the Editor of Vogue Knitting Magazine. She commissioned me to knit a waistcoat in Fair Isle for her next issue. Not knowing what Fair Isle was I got my cleaning lady to show me how.

That took roughly 20 minutes. (This particularly makes protests of the complication of what I do in knitting from experienced Knitters a great mystery to me) I only ever use what I learned in those first 20 minutes so that my work in intarsia and Fair Isle is very low tech.

Because my main interest is colour I feel no need for fancy stitches like lace and raised textures. The colour does all the work, particularly in good pattern structures I’m always on the lookout for.

After the 1st article in Vogue Knitting I went onto Knit every idea I could glean from my travels and museums like the V&A. I met Stephen Sheard of Rowan yarns in the early 80s and started knitting kits for him to place in Magazines and papers. Steve Lovi, a brilliant photographer and ideas man, worked with me to produce my 1st book in 1985. We broke all the rules, making our lush publication look like a coffee table book on Ethnic Textiles with double page spreads and very colourful fashion shoots in Kew Gardens and Malta.

Glorious Knitting was a surprising instant hit. 40,000 copies sold in two weeks and it is amazingly still in print, selling all over the world. 14 more books followed and I’ve travelled the world giving lectures, workshops and media appearances.

There has never been a moment I’ve grown weary of it all as I’m always breaking new ground, trying new designs and mediums like mosaic, painting, needlepoint and patchwork. I work with a good team of creative people. The weaver Richard Womersley, my assistant designer Brandon Mably and Katy Kingston who runs the office and helps with patchwork. We all inspire and encourage each other so interest in these crafts and arts has never waned.

The greatest thing people can do to encourage the young is to stop telling them how hard it is to do what I do. Not to be so uptight about good technique and to enjoy playing with colour. I’ve seen 1st time knitters take up one of my big colour filled coats as a beginning project and pull it off because no one said they couldn’t manage it.

Basically I’m turned on by the same things that first attracted me in decorative art books and museums. Good flat pattern that are a vehicle for colour Shadings, carpets, pottery, intricate architectural details and the whole world of embroidery, beaded and painted textiles of the ethnic world etc.

Knitting remains one of the most satisfying activities of my life. The experience of seeing a work grow on your needles, living dangerously making it up as you go is one of the deepest thrills in living on this planet, it stimulates and soothes me at the same time. The process is the most delicious.

When I’m actually done there is a slight regret, like finishing a good book, but then you go on to finding a place to photograph it and put it in a museum show to inspire others and that is another sort of satisfaction.

Designing is a great dream come true job, the only downside is when a magazine turns you down because they don’t have your vision.

Patchwork involves another aspect of my creative self. I can get back to my painting to create the fabric ranges that go into my quilts. But once the fabrics exist, cutting and placing the patchwork is just the same as much of my knitting. Often a pattern motif I’m exploring in patchwork, I will also try out in knitting, and vice versa. There is a lot of cross over in these crafts. Many of my audience do all the crafts I do.

The knit scene is pretty similar in the US and Europe. In Scandinavian countries they are less timid about playing with colour and do very fine Fair Isle and intarsia.

You ask how it feels to be a world renowned knit designer. Am I? I only know where ever I go people come out of the wood work who have my books and enjoy doing colourful knitting and that makes us all instantly sympathetic.

As for the Renaissance in knitting, I say AT LAST! And please get over the simple scarf stage and move up to rich colour exploration. That’s where it really at.

I love walking and travelling always on the prowl for fresh and exotic ideas and watching TV and Films to see all those worlds they depict.

There are I’m sure some adventurous new designers that are waiting in the wings to surprise and delight us. I can’t think of any names at present because we are going through such a drab timid phase in the knit/fashion world. All the rich wondrous possibilities are lying a bit dormant just now.

Actually Brandon Mably with his newest book Knitting Colour is the most adventurous on the scene just now. He is an inspiring teacher and encourages many to splash out and express themselves with colour.

Knitting still is still a pleasure for me and always will be, there is so much yet to explore."

Focus on Kaffe Fassett

Women's Weekly, 8th April 2008

Kaffe Fassett is one of the most influential living textile artists and the best selling author of knitting, mosaic and patchwork titles. He has hosted his own TV series, Glorious Colour, and was the first living textile artist to have a one man show at London's V&A. His extraordinary passion and insatiable appetite for colour is apparent whatever medium he uses, whether he is painting, knitting, creating patchwork, needlepoint or mosaics, Kaffe perceives all his work in the same way - as the opportunity to play with colours and patterns.

Hailing from sunny California, he began his training as a fine artist in Boston, before moving to London to paint in the mid sixties. His first venture into textiles was knitting. On a trip to a Scottish woollen mill with celebrated fashion designer of the time, Bill Gibb, Kaffe was inspired by the colours in the landscape and, finding the same colours at the mill in Shetland wool, he bought some yarn and knitting needles. A passenger on the train back to London taught him how to knit and the rest is history!

His first design had the ultimate accolade of appearing in Vogue. Within a short time, Missoni was commissioning his commercial collections and celebrities were clamouring for his one-off creations.

Over the years, his talents have diversified but not diluted. His vibrant and characteristic designs look fabulous whether they're stitched in needlepoint on canvas, pieced together in patchwork as quilts, or as designs in mosaics.

For many Years, Kaffe has worked closely with Rowan Yarns in Yorkshire to produce designer patterns to inspire hand-knitters.

A major part of his output is now an expanding range of fabric prints for the patchwork markets.

Each design and colourway in the fabric range is a delight. You only have to look at a small selection of his patchwork designs, shown here, to be stunned by their vivacity and profusion of pattern. But if you examine them you'll only find simple arrangements of squares, diamonds and triangles - it's the colour that brings them alive.

With a diary that's full of books to write, lecture tours involving slide talks and workshops on colour in design, which take him all over the world, Kaffe's thirst for creative inspiration is never-ending.

A PAINTER'S PALETTE  

  Kaffe Fassett is known for his signature knitwear designs: intricate intarsias and elaborate patterns rendered in lay­ers of glorious color. But VK readers may not know that Kaffe's unique sense of color and design has inspired legions of devoted fans-and brought him recognition worldwide as an expert on color and craft. "I'm a painter,  knitter, quill needle artist and designer," he says, "but my approach to every discipline is the same-manipulating pattern and seeing how color comes alive in different forms."

  Until age 28, Kaffe devoted his life to painting. Born in San Francisco, he won a scholarship to the School of the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston at age 19-but left after three months to paint in London, where he took up residence in 1964. (click here to continue)

An Article about Kaffe & Liza Prior Lucy in QuiltWorks Today Magazine

Driving out of New York City, Liza Prior Lucy was entering the Lincoln Tunnel when she braked to a screeching halt. After 15 minutes in standstill traffic, her impatience flared: "The only thing I could see were the glaring red taillights of the truck in front of me!", but she found her passenger's reaction far more memorable. Completely relaxed, Kaffe Fassett was gazing at a tattered old poster. He recalls, "Its multilayers of peeling paint mesmerized me. They formed an intricate pattern that looked like a single encrusted texture that was beautiful."

This incident, the first of many lessons in observation that Kaffe would give Liza, occurred in 1985 when they were barely acquainted. "He always has his eyes open to the world around him," she declares. The learning has been reciprocal because Kaffe describes Liza as a great teacher who has taught him how to teach. Now that they work together, Kaffe's expertise in design is combined with Liza's outstanding quilting and teaching skills. By recognizing their distinct talents and backgrounds, one can more fully appreciate the brilliance of their collaborative work. (click here to continue)