Soo Meets her Knitting Hero

Friday was a banner day in my knitting life -- I went to the V&A to hear Kaffe Fassett speak. Despite my love for all things Kaffe I had never been to one of his lectures or workshops so I was pretty excited. (In this picture Kaffe is giving some other Susan advice on how to fix her knitted collar.)

Being me, I was also likely to abandon the whole thing at the last minute. But a firm shove out the door by a colleague (the Caked Crusader in fact) and I was on my way.

My cab driver was greatly amused by the fact that I was going to a museum, for a lecture on a Friday night. BY CHOICE! When I explained it was to listen to a knitting designer he knew he had the rest of the journey sewn up as far as commentary went. "Knitting designer? Well, at least it won't take long. Knit 1, purl 1. That's all there is isn't it?" I laughed and asked if he thought that maybe I was being conned - because they were charging me £18 for 2 hours. He advised me that the only way to get value for the money was to drink A LOT at the wine reception.

The auditorium was full and a few latecomers had to sit on the stairs. Kaffe was charming and inspiring and pretty funny. You can tell he loves what he does. The talk was accompanied by a slide show of some of his work and the objects and scenes that inspire it. There was a Q&A session and my favourite question and answer of the evening went something like:

Q: Have you ever made anything that didn't work, or that was horrible.

A: Kaffe answered that question (basically no, he watches and refines as he goes along and he always learns something from a piece) and then went on to comment that he thinks most people give up too early. And how he's often so frustrated at workshops because he can see the beginning of a great piece but the person working it loses confidence and rips it out - way too early. They don't give the piece time to work.

And I do think that is particularly true with colour knitting. Each row and colour adds so much to the rows around it - you really do have to persevere in order to 'get' the picture. When I was making the coat I was often amazed at how a colour would affect the colours around it - sometimes quite dramatically changing the look.

During the wine reception there was an opportunity to have his new book signed and meet Kaffe. I had brought along my copy of Kaffee Fassett at the V&A (1989ish) and the coat, so I ventured to the signing area. I was a bit babbly (eeeeee) and my voice an octave or so above its usual register - but I met the man himself.

He was happy to sign my older book and seemed genuinely pleased to see the coat. I gushed about how much I loved it. He said it was lovely and it made his heart sing to see people take on the really big projects. Eeeeee.

I didn't take my cabbies advice about drinking a lot of the free wine at the reception -- but I definitely feel I got my money's worth!!

In other knitting news I feel the need to rant about knots in self patterning yarn. Particularly when they make no attempt to keep the colour continuity. I mean - the WHOLE point of self patterning yarn is the pattern. If they mess that up.... Grrrr.....

Kaffee Fasset Chinese Rose Coat - 18 Years in the Making!

I began the coat (nicknamed my 'Technicolour Dream Coat' - but more formally it's a Kaffe Fassett Chinese Rose Coat)the year I moved to London (the first time). Even then I knew it wasn't something I would ever wear. But the colours, and the variety of yarns were amazing and I wanted to make it.

The pattern is in Kaffe Fassett at the V&A, published in 1988 and now out of print. The book contains the Chinese Rose pattern as a short jacket -- but I opted to make the variant he describes in the book. I figure - go big or go home. Or something.

The original yarn was bought at Liberty and John Lewis - and without a doubt represented the biggest investment in yarn I'd ever made for a single project. (That may still be true.)

The background is made up of everchanging stripes, mostly in deep greys, reds and purples. There are 7 flower colourways and the stems are made up of 3 green yarns used in 3 different combinations.

I made slow progress for the first 2 years. A project with 34 colours where the colours change every row - is not portable and not something that you can easily pick up to work on for a few minutes! Then I became a cat owner -- and discovered the cats loved the yarns and colours even more than I did!! Knitting while they attacked the yarn (or rested on the completed portion) was tricky. Progress for the next (16!) years was even slower - but every now and then I'd find an opportunity to work on it.

The coat was knit back and forth on circular needles in one piece. I started at the back, knit up, cast on additional stitches for the sleeves and then split the stitches working down each side of the front separately.

'Setting up' to knit - ie getting the right colours ready for the next row always took a few minutes as each individual row would require at least 3 different coloured yarns, and some as many as 7! And from one row to the next half to all of the colours would change. With all of that I'd say each row in the bottom half of the back took 30 minutes. The longer rows which included the sleeves probably took 45 minutes each. To put that in context I'd say that generally I'm a faster than average knitter.

It wasn't possible (at least for me) to memorise the pattern, and with the constantly changing colours I was constantly referring to the charts. Because of this I could really only work on it when I had some real time to devote to it -- it definitely wasn't a project I could pick up and put down on a whim!

BUT I always loved knitting on it and never found it a chore. With every single row the character of the coat changed, and each colour seemed to bring something new out in the others. So I always felt I was making progress - even if it was slow!

I ran out of quite a few colours - which was a bit worrying at first as (not surprisingly) some of the yarn had been discontinued in the meantime. Which meant finding alternates of similar weight and colour. Luckily the colour combining means that the differences are pretty hard to spot. In fact I've lost track of them and would be hard pressed to identify which is original yarn and which is 'substitute'.

I wove all ends in as I knit - which saved my sanity as I can't imagine what it would have been like to try and do it at the end. Another 18 years at least! Here's a photo of the wrong side for anyone interested in that sort of thing.

My tension was amazingly consistent over the 18 years - which I'm thankful for as I would have been very annoyed to finish it to discover one of the front sides longer than the back!

I think the flower pattern is amazing (Kaffe is a genius), and would encourage anyone feeling intimidated by his patterns to give it a go. I think these colours and pattern would look amazing as a blanket or throw.

I'm currently trying to figure out the best way to display the coat as it seems a shame to hide it away... All tips gratefully received.