Monday, June 15, 2009
Passion for Colour
"Working with colour is not an intellectual game. You should see what your heart feels, that way you will stumble across more and more personal excitement in your work." --Kaffe Fassett
The words "colour" and "Kaffe Fassett" are synonymous in the world of knitting. No one is as audacious, as experimental and as unapologetic for his risque approach to colour. There are no rules for Kaffe. No colour wheels or principles of colour theory. No requirement for fine arts training. He asks you to look and see what pleases. Then put it together.
If it doesn't turn out as well as you expected, just add more colour. There is no such thing as too much colour for Kaffe Fassett.
What a liberating notion! No rules. Just do as you please.
I can still remember when I was first introduced to Kaffe Fassett's incredible designs in early issues of Rowan Knitting Magazine. Those incredible juxtapostions of unlikely colours. But when mixed together, forming a rich palette. One is left wondering if anything else could have worked as well.
Kaffe also believes in introducing more colour into men's knits as well.
Many of his designs use the intarsia method of knitting, in which many colours are worked within certain areas of the fabric. Intarsia is a technique avoided by many of today's knitters. They complain that it is difficult to learn, frustrating to manage with all those colours at once, and slow to work as the natural rhythm of knitting is interrupted at each colour change.
If you think this way, then you have never attended a class on intarsia by Lucy Neatby. She de-mystifies this technique by explaining its underlying concepts. You can learn all about intarsia from Lucy's excellent DVD's. Once you understand how intarsia works, you will be undaunted.
Meanwhile it is still possible to purchase Kaffe's designs in his recently released book, Kaffe Knits Again. Many of his classic designs are re-worked in new colour schemes. That man simply can't stop experimenting with colour, while encouraging the rest of us to follow his lead.
And we are grateful.
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