No-Bull Book Review: Knitting with the Color Guys, by Kaffe Fassett & Brandon Mably

While I was at VK Live, I picked up a couple of books simply because I couldn't help myself.  One of them was the brand-new knitting book by Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably.  Knitting with The Color Guys: Inspiration, Ideas, and Projects from the Kaffe Fassett Studio (Sixth and Spring 2012; MSRP $24.95, available for $15.80 through the link above as of the time of this writing), is a lush, gorgeous book full of, well, color.  From the endpapers featuring a knitted motif to the gorgeous photographs throughout to the projects inside, Fassett and Mably live up to their billing as "the color guys" (although shouldn't it be the "colour guys"?).  Let's take a closer look.

KWTCG is a hardback book, about 9 x 10.5 inches, with about 176 pages. From the very beginning, you know what this book is about: indeed, in his introduction, Kaffe Fassett characterizes his style as "full-on color."  The approach is intuitive, focusing on experimenting and playing with color, rather than giving the knitters a set of hard-and-fast rules. For example, Fassett urges knitters to be bold and try things, reminding them "don't judge too harshly till you have at least ten inches of knitting on those needles." To make it easier to customize projects and color combinations, Fassett notes that many of the book's motifs are done in different colorways, making it easier for a knitter to pick one that suits her taste or home decor. (A special note of commendation must be given to photographer Debbie Patterson both for the lovely photography and for including a nice shot of Mr. Fassett's well-turned leg in her portrait of him.)

Mably's introduction tells a bit more about the duo's design process.  "I was intrigued to see Kaffe using a bright palette in bold contrasts, as oposed to his more usual tone on tone palettes -- usually I am the one to reach for bolder colors and be more graphic with my design work."  Mably notes that he and Fassett design "directly on the needles from simple charts" but echoes Fassett's direction to put the work up and stand back to view it before deciding whether one likes it.  Interestingly, he reveals that the collection grew without "an ordered plan," as the pair would begin by casting on, then pin up a piece of work before deciding, based on factors like the weight of the yarn or the nature of the pattern, whether a given piece of knitting wanted to be a pillow or a scarf or a throw.

Multistripe Stole (KF)

One aspect of this book (and something that I've noticed in other Fassett books) is the inclusion of photographs showing various sources of design inspiration. Before we even get to a single pattern, we see a close-up of paintings, cushions, pottery, sources of the shape and color and texture that end up in the knitting.  It's fun to page through the book, paying special attention to things other than the knitting -- the circular weaving of a chain seat, the geometric wooden inlays of a desk, brightly colored pieces of tile in a mosaic.

Half-Circle Throw (KF)

Ah yes, there I go, getting lost in the color and pattern and texture.

Dark Dot Scarf (KF)

Let's get back to the nuts and bolts:  The heart of the book is divided into four sections:  "Soft Tones," "Singing Color," "Moody Hues" and "Rich Shades." As you can tell from the headings, each section revolves around a general color scheme.

Trapezoid Throw (KF)

"Soft Tones" is inspired by "the delicate, restrained end of the color palette," items like spring flowers, beach pebbles, all-white or all-gray outfits, weathered wood.  There are six patterns:  a striped stole, a baby blanket featuring a triangular motif, fingerless gloves with a zigzag pattern, a second stole knit in Rowan Kidsilk Haze for a "mossy" texture, a scarf with a very easy but effective dot fair isle pattern, and a checkerboard hat, fingerless gloves and legwarmer ensemble.

Checkerboard Ensemble (BM)

"Singing Color" features the vivid hues of crayons, party balloons, carnivals, fresh fruit and vegetables. Nine patterns use bold, bright color: from a zigzag throw to a shadowbox cushion and throw, a pineapple blanket, a zigzag cushion, a triangular cushion, a throw featuring a half-circle motif, a wide scarf with broken stripes and a cushion with all sorts of striped patterns and an hourglass shape in the middle.

Multistripe Cushion (KF)

"Moody Hues" emphasizes faded, stonewashed textures, "the colors of old tapestries or ethnic wraps that have seen a lot of wear." A cleverly-designed blanket featuring diagonal stripes that form blocks, dotted cushions, a blanket knit in striped blocks, a softly striping scarf, variations on the triangle cushion and zigzag cushion, a throw and cushion with trapezoidal pattern, a diagonal garter stitch scarf typify the moody, chalky hues of this section.

X-Factor Blanket (KF)

Last is "Rich Shades," obviously using deeper, darker, more dramatic shades. The red circle stole is a good example; the relatively simple shapes gain drama and depth when knit in ruby red and navy blue. A variation of the dot scarf, diagonal scarves knit in the rich hues of a color-changing yarn, a stole with accordion-style pattern, a ridged scarf, a scarf featuring the half-circle design, and scarf and legwarmers with a "wiggle" pattern use these rich shades to perfection.

Red Circle Stole (KF)

The "Useful Information" section gives some directions on color knitting techniques (like one- and two-handed stranded knitting, how to weave and twist strands, intarsia, duplicate stitch, and information on yarn categories and substitution.

The numbers are as follows:  a total of 31 patterns (although some are variations on each other, I counted each separate pattern entry in the table of contents), of which 4 are stoles; 8 are blankets or throws; 2 pair of fingerless gloves; one hat; 9 are scarves; 8 are cushion covers; plus two pairs of legwarmers.

Accordion Stole (BM)

I know that some knitters will take a quick look at the patterns in this book and say something like "The patterns are all so simple; why should I buy the book?"  But really, this book isn't about patterns per se. The patterns are on the basic side because the focus is on the color -- combinations of color, unexpected pairings, bursts of hue that can rev you up or relax you.  And an equally important part of the book is encouraging knitters to play with color; not to simply copy the combinations that Fassett and Mably have created, as fabulous as they are, but to find something that inspires you, colors that make you happy, to play with shape, to go out on a limb a little and add colors spontaneously and see what you get.

Opal Dot Scarf (KF)

Likewise, I am sure that some knitters will look at the patterns, see that they call for numerous skeins of yarn and freak out.  But I don't think that the point is necessarily to have you run out and buy every single color of every yarn used in a given pattern. Yes, if you have the money you could, and more power to you, but you could just as easily pull together a bunch of leftover balls, single skeins and other odds and ends in about the same weight or category, and use them to craft your own color combinations. Each pattern includes several paragraphs discussing how the colors interact, with suggestions for additional palettes.  Knowing, say, that a pillow requires a lighter and darker shade of the same color, plus a border color, makes it easier to play around with one's own favorites, with some assurance of getting a pleasing result.

Zigzag Fingerless Gloves (KF)

The yarns used in the book all come from Rowan, and range from Kidsilk Haze (airy baby mohair with silk), fingering weight sock yarn, dk-weight cotton, heavy worsted Summer Tweed, chunky color-shading wool, bulky-weight Big Wool and more -- just about every category of yarn is used somewhere. The patterns are for items other than sweaters -- stoles, throws, pillows, scarves, and a few pairs of fingerless gloves and a hat -- and are one size.  You'll find thorough directions if you want to duplicate the colors shown in the sample patterns, and the patterns feature charts (mostly in color) and diagrams to help with color layouts.

Trapezoid Cushion (KF)

There are all different kinds of knitting books, and I value them all. This is a book that I will turn to over and over again when I need a jolt of color, when I'm looking for inspiration, or when I need my spirits lifted by gorgeous photos of pretty things. Of course, the lovely projects packed with color will also provide many hours of knitting enjoyment, especially if one follows the Color Guys' advice to "play with these ideas in any way that occurs to you as you sit down with your own yarn stash."

Blog Tour: Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts

I am thrilled to be a part of the STC blog tour for Kaffe Fassett's Simple Shapes Spectacular Quilts: 23 Original Quilt Designs (STC 2010; MSRP $35.00, but available via the link for $23.10 at the time of this writing), by Kaffe Fassett with Liza Prior Lucy. Many, I hope most, of you knitters are familiar with Kaffe Fassett's non-quilting fiber work. He's a frequent contributor to Rowan Magazine; has written beautiful books like Glorious Knitting, designs needlepoint, paints, and, of course, is involved in creating beautiful fabrics for Rowan with which he creates unbelievable quilting designs.


But who is this Liza Prior Lucy (as in "by Kaffe Fassett with Liza Prior Lucy")?

Well, Liza Prior Lucy is one of the most accomplished people you'll ever want to meet in the fiber world. When I first met her, I had no idea who she was or all of the things she'd done: needlepoint design, a longtime presence in the knitting world, and now the goddess of patchwork.

So how did Liza Lucy end up as collaborator and right-hand gal to the esteemed Kaffe Fassett?


Go back awhile in time. Liza Lucy was sales representative for several big-name yarn companies; her territory was Pennsylvania, New York and New Jersey. One day, Liza was in a shop that was selling a Kaffe Fassett knitting book. "I'd been knitting for years and I'd never seen anything like it," she remembers. "I immediately bought six copies of it. One for me, one for my mother, one for my cousin, and so on."

The next day, Liza got a call from someone asking her to add a new line of knitting yarns to her portfolio. Liza grumbled. "I kept saying no, I already represented all the best knitting lines. I said my suitcase was already too heavy. I kept saying no." Then she heard that the yarn company was working with a designer with an unpronounceable name, "Coffee Faucet," or something like that. Liza realized who it was, and immediately added that yarn line to her portfolio. Yes, dear readers, that little new yarn line was Rowan.


After Liza added Rowan to the companies she was representing (and rued the fact that if she'd waited one more day "I could have bought those six books at wholesale!"), part of her job became working with Kaffe Fassett to sell his knitting book. "Part of my job," Liza remembers, "was to take Kaffe around to the shops in my territory to booksignings. We went all over New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania. And no one showed up." At the time, book signings weren't regularly held for crafting titles, and shops that couldn't harness the power of the internet-- remember you young 'uns, there was a time in the crafting world when there was No Internet -- didn't have the tools they now have to get the word out and create buzz surrounding author/designer visits. "We went from shop to shop, and no one came. So we got to spend hours together yakking and getting to know each other."

Kaffe and Liza hit it off. They both had grown up in small towns and loved them, even as they knew they had to leave their small hometowns to do the work they wanted to do. They liked the same music and the same movies, and the similarities laid the ground for a strong friendship.



Several years later, Liza was pregnant and starting to do patchwork quilting. She sent Kaffe a postcard asking him if he wanted to do a quilting book with her. Kaffe wrote back, saying "Nice hearing from you, keep in touch." As Liza recalls, "He never came right out and said no. He may have meant 'no, thank you' but I never saw the words 'no, thank you' so I figured he hadn't said no." She began working on quilt designs, looking at Kaffe's other work and adapting some of his knitting motifs into quilted ones. He would write back with critiques and suggestions -- "that one needs a bit more yellow" -- and the foundation for their working relationship was born.

When Liza received a phone call out of the blue from a woman looking to sell a Kaffe Fassett painting that she had purchased in the 70s, Liza, who was considering buying it, first asked what the subject was. "She said it was a patchwork quilt. I said yes. Later, Kaffe saw the painting, and after that, I think we both knew it was meant to be." The world of fabric and quilting was changed forever when Ken Bridgewater and Stephen Sheard agreed to start Rowan Patchwork & Quilting Company out of friendship and support for Kaffe and Liza. Kaffe not only had a place to showcase his designs, but a supportive company to develop fabrics that he would design.




Four books later, umpteen fabric patterns later, the working relationship between Kaffe and Liza has endured. And the latest fruits of their collaboration is a spectacular addition to the fiber arts world.

Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts contains exactly what the name promises: it takes a handful of simple geometric shapes -- the kind any first-grader would know -- and shows how to turn them into spectacular quilts. The book, just under 200 pages long, is divided into six sections: Squares, Rectangles, Triangles, Diamonds, Quarter Circles and Circles. Each section begins with a montage of photographs featuring the shape in art or nature, followed by a few pages in which Fassett discusses how the shape inspires his work. Next, the quilts themselves are featured in gorgeous photographs and in many cases, alternate colorways. The patterns and instructions for the quilts follow, with a full-page photo of the quilt laid flat, and lots of color diagrams showing how the quilt is constructed.


I will freely confess that exposure to Kaffe and Liza's work has turned me into a quilter -- or at least someone who dabbles in quilting. The striking patterns of the fabrics, the combinations of colors, the way that shapes play off each other, all of these aspects of Kaffe and Liza's quilting fascinate me and make me want to play with fabric myself. But since my audience of readers is primarily knitting, what does this have to do with you?

Everything, really. The beauty of Simple Shapes is that you don't have to be a quilter to take away so much from the book. Simply as a coffee table book, full of gorgeous photography (done by Debbie Patterson), the book is worth the twenty bucks or so for its beauty alone. But as a knitter, we don't have to stick with knitting patterns for inspiration. Simple Shapes is full of color and interesting color mixes: fodder for combining color in your knitting projects. Simple Shapes looks at different shapes and combines them to form spectacular quilts: as a knitter, you can use shapes, either in knitting modularly or as motifs in your work. Simple Shapes shows individual geometric figures that anyone can see in the world around them and applies them to quilting: you as a knitter can look around in your world and find shapes and color combinations and textural effects and incorporate them into your knitting. I'm a believer in the subconscious aspect of creating, and even if you don't set out on a field trip to look for, say, hexagons in your daily life, just the exposure to this way of thinking will, I think, meander around in your subconscious and come out in interesting ways in your knitting and/or crochet work.

So this knitter (and peripatetic quilter) highly recommends Simple Shapes, Spectacular Quilts for anyone and everyone on your fiber-lovers list. It's eye candy, and worth it for that reason alone, but it also has a lot to show us about color, design and the creative process.

For more Kaffe and Liza quilting fun, check out the STC quilt-along here. There's a free download of a pattern, and links to a Facebook group where you can quilt along with others.

P.S. to my regular readers: update at the Black Bunny Fibers on-line shop went live yesterday, with mini-skeins that would be just perfect for using to play with color and shape...

A weekend with Vévé

Ah, what a wonderful weekend it's been! Instead of getting sad that I had to take Véronik to the airport this morning, I will tell you about some of the fun things we did during her whirlwind visit. After arriving Friday evening, we swept Véronik right from the baggage claim into Center City, where we had a lovely Thai dinner with Craig of Loop, Laura G. and some other friends. Veronik appeared at Loop on Saturday:



On display were many of the garments from the fall issue of St-Denis's magazine, including this lovely vest



and Mary Jane Mucklestone's beautiful jacket:



Craig had stocked up on plenty of the lovely Nordique yarn:


and best of all, we got a sneak preview of the new St-Denis yarn, called Boreale, which will be coming out very soon. It's a fingering weight and comes in the same lovely palette as Nordique. Veronik had brought a few of the garments that will be in the spring St-Denis magazine, like these stranded gauntlets, and underneath you can see another lovely stole:


And of course, so many great people came, like Anmiryam


and Lisa and Allison (I'm sorry your eyes are closed, Craig!!)

and this friendly group of NJ knitters (but can you guess which one is called "Gooey"? she sure didn't look gooey to me, she looked pretty):


and the Irish goddess herself, shown here hugging the Polish Princess:


I was having such a good time, I didn't even get to take photos of pals like Aileen or Laura or Jennifer (not Genyphur) or some of the nice new folks I met like Jenny and Terry or the Facebook friends I met in real life like Hope. . .

It appears that some people ended the afternoon by looking for hot men wearing knitwear on teh Interwebz:


By the coy little smile on Craig's face, I'm guessing they just found a particularly hawt model.

Sunday was brunch in New Hope with Joe (posing here with Tom)

les beaux mecs

and Kathy Merrick and Liza Lucy,

le baiser

who has a fantastic quilting book with Kaffe Fassett about to be released by Stewart Tabori & Chang.



We ogled the quilts and the fabric



and more amazing quilts



and two incredibly sweet dogs (this is Sadie):


But alas, even the best weekends must come to an end. Bon voyage, Véronik! Come back soon!

No-Bull Book Review: Rowan's Greatest Knits, edited by Kate Buller

How do you celebrate your thirtieth anniversary as one of the world's leading yarn and knitting design companies? One way is to issue a commemorative book. That's what Rowan Yarns has done. Recently Rowan's Greatest Knits: 30 Years of Knitted Patterns from Rowan Yarns
(Taunton 2009) hit the shelves, and if you're a Rowan fan, you'll want to put it at the top of your holiday wish list.


As someone who got hooked on knitting in part because I fell in love with the gorgeous patterns and beautiful natural-fiber yarns that Rowan has produced, it's hard for me to imagine a knitting world without them. But Rowan is a relative youngster compared to some of the other big yarn companies (several companies, such as Lion Brand, Briggs & Little, Dale of Norway and Sirdar, to name a few, have been making yarn for over 100 years). If you haven't read it already, there's a wonderful interview with founder Stephen Sheard here. It's fascinating to read how the company began and how it's grown over the years. More recently, Rowan was purchased by the large Coats & Clark corporation, and we are still seeing how corporate ownership of Rowan will affect the beloved Rowan.

Rowan's Greatest Knits is a celebration of the company and its patterns. The book, loaded with color photos of Rowan patterns and yarns, is divided into two sections. The first consists of forty-plus pages celebrating Rowan's history. After a one-page introduction by editor Kate Buller (Senior Brand Manager at Rowan), you'll find a brief summary of Rowan's history. The remainder of this section is divided by decades: 80s, 90s and 00s. I enjoyed reading the summaries for each decade, highlighting where handknitting fit into the larger fashion trends; using specific Rowan designs to demonstrate themes that predominated in those decades (for example, the use of highly patterned and brightly colored stranded designs in the 80s; the more muted, retro country phase of the 90s; and the trend toward urban, pared-down designs in the 00s); and analyzing the types of yarns that were especially popular or new during each decade. Each decade also includes a profile of a Rowan designer whose work typifies the decade (Kaffe Fassett, Kim Hargreaves and Marion Foale, respectively). As a Rowan freak, I have to say I was left wanting more of this kind of retrospective analysis, but of course, the heart of the book is the pattern section.

Fontaine by Marion Foale

Which brings us to the question that many Rowanaphiles will be wondering about: With thirty years of gorgeous patterns to pick from, what made the final cut?

If you're looking for a "what was the most popular" ranking, or even a top ten kind of list, you won't find them; the preface to the patterns states how they were selected:

The following updated patterns are a selection taken from the Rowan magazine during its long history. They include designs from a cross-section of Rowan's designers, with particular emphasis on those designers who have been closely associated with Rowan over the years.

It seems to me that instead of looking at this as a collection of the 30 "greatest" Rowan designs, it is more fitting to look at the book as a selection of 30 representative Rowan designs, patterns that typify the strengths of the designer (e.g., Kaffe Fassett's magnificent color sense) and the time period in which they were created (e.g., Louisa Harding's Russian Jacket, featuring bright colorwork and the very generous fit that was so popular in the 80s).

If you're curious about which designers are represented, I did a rough count and found the following:




I suspect that people will be able to debate the representation of certain designers and specific designs (I'd have liked to see a little more of Brandon Mably, and I love Martin Storey's elegant designs, to name a few) and each Rowan fanatic will have their own favorites. It's definitely worth noting that on Rowan's website, an extensive selection of patterns shown in the photographs in the book, but not included in the book's pattern section, are available for free download (link here). Let's give Rowan a big round of applause for being generous and sharing some of those oldies but goodies that are unavailable to those of us who would gladly purchase older Magazines were they currently available (unless you can afford to pay astronomical prices on Ebay).

Looking at it by the numbers, the designs are overwhelming geared at adult women: you'll find only one design, a lovely fisherman-style aran by Martin Storey, that is sized for men (don't worry, ladies: it's also sized for women, too).

Surf, by Martin Storey

The remaining 29 or so are all ladies' patterns -- about six pullovers, one vest (one of my all-time favorite Rowan patterns, I must say)

Electra, by Louisa Harding

two scarves, one lace stole, one non-lace stole, three summer tops, one poncho and the rest (a baker's dozen or so) cardigans. The patterns represent a variety of techniques: beaded knitting, intarsia, stranded colorwork (I wish there were more all-over stranded garments, though), cables and a bit of lace (not nearly enough for me). It's especially helpful that the yarn requirements for each design have been updated to call for current Rowan yarns and colorways, since over the years, various yarns and shades have come and gone. Indeed, the paragraphs discussing why particular yarns and colors are recommended as subtitutes are extremely thoughtful & helpful, and reading through them would illustrate for a new or tentative knitter some of the criteria in making successful yarn and color substitutions. (For more in that vein, the pattern section begins with a good explanation of how to substitute yarns, touching on weight, texture and color, and urging the knitter to do test swatches to determine if the proposed substitution will work.)

Beaded Cardigan by Kim Hargreaves

Of course, all the patterns are shown in lovely Rowan yarns. The vast majority of designs (about 14 or so) are knit in DK-weight yarns; by my estimation, about 6 are knitted in fingering weight, 2 in worsted weight, 3 in aran weight, one in the tricky denim (which is knit to one gauge and shrinks in the first laundering, rendering it particularly tough to substitute for), and 4 in Kid Silk Haze, which can be knit at so many weights that I tend to put it in its own category.

Anice, by Sharon Miller, knit in Kidsilk Haze

As for sizing? Some of the patterns come in S/M/L, calling for bust measurements of 34/36/38, while others go from XS to XL, with bust measurements of32/34/36/38/40, but pay close attention to ease in deciding which size to make. Ease is very tricky here given that the patterns are cherry-picked from thirty years' worth of changing design sensibilities. For example, one pattern may have 1 to 2 inches ease (so that a sweater sized for a 34" bust has an actual chest circumference of 35 or 36", a close fit) while another may have 5 or 6 inches of ease (so a different sweater sized for the same 34" bust has an actual circumference of over40 inches -- a very relaxed fit). Take a look at the schematic and do the math for the actual circumference before making up your mind about the sizing.

Turning to the more technical end of things, Rowan's Greatest Knits is a lovely hardcover book, about 150 pages long, full color. The front section of the book features lots of gorgeous color photographs of the designs, while the pattern section is laid out similarly to Rowan Magazine: a thumbnail photo of the design, (and unlike the magazine, some of the patterns also include inset photos of the pattern stitch or another important design feature of the garment), schematics, charts (some of the charts are black-and-white, others in color), and full directions.

If you're a Rowanaphile like me, this book would make a lovely gift for you -- even if you have all or most of the Magazines, it's fun to read about the history of the company over the years, and it's helpful to have very straightforward directions on how to substitute yarns for the designs. If you don't know much about Rowan, this would also be a great book to add to your knitting library, as it contains a cross-section of versatile and time-tested Rowan patterns.

I lerve Kaffe.

Lookit how cute this sock is: