MKG Cable Gram - Volume 21, Number 2

Don't miss the chance to see a legend in person as Kaffe Fassett comes to the Textile Centeron Friday, October 7, starting at 6 pm. Tickets for the gala event (it includes a receptionand book-signing as well as a talk by Fassett) are not cheap, but all proceeds go to benefit the Textile Center library. Advance tickets, which are selling at a brisk pace, are $50 - call 612-436-0464 and be ready to use your credit card or to send a check pronto - because tickets at the door, if there are any left, will be $75. The auditorium will seat about 250 people, and as of this writing we’ve sold about 180 tickets. Kaffe Fassett, the California-born textile designer who made an indelible mark as a designer for knitters for the British company Rowan Yarns in the 1980s and 1990s, is returning to his London roots with a new book, Kaffe Fassett’s Museum Quilts: Designs Inspired by the Victoria & Albert Museum (published by Taunton Press and released September 6). He is on tour to promote this new book.

London’s Victoria & Albert Museum, familiarly "the V&A" to those of us lucky enough to have visited it, is a treasure-trove of inspiration for any textile artist, and this book is gorgeous. It is also, of course, about quilting, not knitting, but the color and textures it portrays will lend themselves to knitted garments, as well-just as Fassett’s original love, needlepoint, translated itself into such well-loved (if insanely complex) intarsia knitting designs as his "Foolish Virgins" sweater, "Tumbling Blocks" bedcover, and "Tapestry Leaf" jacket.

You'll find the designs for these Fassett garments, and more, in many books on the Textile Center Library shelves, including Glorious Knits (1985), Glorious Color: Sources of Inspiration for Knitting & Needlepoint (1992), Family Album: More Glorious Knits for Children and Adults (2000), and Kaffe’s Classics: 25 Favorite Knitting Patterns (1993). There’s also Brilliant Knits: 25 Contemporary Knitwear Designs from the Kaffe Fassett Studio by Brandon Mably (2001). We’re pulling all these off the shelves for display only until the October 7th event, but they should be available for checkout next month. You will also be able to buy Fassett’s in-print books at the Textile Center bookstore, and have them signed by him after his lecture.

The entire Textile Center will be turned into a kind of "This is your life, Kaffe Fassett!" display for the event, with quilts, tapestries, needlepoint, and knits from and inspired by Fassett designs on display all over the building. We are very short on knitted "Kaffe" items, so if you have any that you want to lend, please contact Textile Center Board Member Judith Fletcher, , as soon as possible. We will take very good care of them!

The schedule for October 7th: Doors open at 6 pm, Fassett’s lecture starts at 7, and we anticipate that the reception and book-signing will start at 8. There will be a silent auction (anyone want to bid on a trip for two to Mexico? Heck, yes!) and some fantastic door prizes. So come bask in Fassett’s glory, and support our glorious Library while you’re at it!

Rebecca Ganzel Thompson is the librarian for the Minnesota Knitters' Guild, and a real-life librarian at two local college libraries.