Glorious Kaffe

Do you know who Kaffe Fassett is?
Only one of the world's most innovative and flamboyant colourists and author of many lovely books on knitting, needlepoint, quilts, interiors - anything you can imagine where Glorious Colour and design can be flaunted and overindulged. I've been a fan since the 80's when I first discovered his beautiful knits and books, so was astounded to hear from my fashion designer daughter that he was coming to a local fabric store and giving a talk in the church hall, to which she had bought tickets.

I packed a tiny watercolour palette and my new Hero bent nib calligraphy pen - a dear friend's son had bought it for me at the factory shop in Shanghai. It had travelled halfway round the world and was finally delivered from Cape Town via another kind friend on Sunday.
We found a front row seat where I had plenty of time to sketch the grand piano draped in quilts. Eventually Kaffe's studio manager Brandon Mably took the stage to introduce the man himself, and we were treated to a fascinating peek into his world of travel and colour, illustrated with a slide show of images from his next book. He did a book signing afterwards, and I thought of asking him to sign my sketch, but decided he might not enjoy my less than flattering rendition. At 77 he is still a very beautiful man!

I'm slowly getting the hang of my new pen. It can make a range of line widths by changing the angle at which you hold it. It works better and more predictably on smoother paper (as in the doodles on the right), but is great for expressive strokes even in my rougher sketchbook. Think it'll inspire me to get back into action and out of a rather arid sketching phase.

Knitting & drawing, drawing & knitting

I don't know what possessed me to draw my knitting - after those brushes I've become a sucker for punishment. This is my load-shedding jersey (or sweater to any American visitors popping in). When electricity cuts became a regular feature of our evenings, I thought it would be something I could do that I wouldn't need to see too well for... which is probably the reason I suspect I may prefer the look of the knitting-in-progress itself rather than the end product. All the lovely nubbly textures, the uneven meandering ribby lines, the interesting lacy holey bits - look so compelling bunched and draped around their needles - but extended over my (non load-shod) upper body... well, might just not come up to original expectations. And, wouldn't you know it, the powers(ha!)-that-be have announced that there will be no more load-shedding, as the poor old substations were collapsing under the strain of all that mass switching off-and-on again. So this may be as far as my jersey gets, though it is also a very good thing to do during rugby season...