Kaffe Fassett, the freaky power of blogs, and the Rectangle of Malabrigo

A few weeks ago, I went to see Kaffe Fassett speak. It was a quilting event but KF's talk was about color and he had slides of his knitting, mosaics, quilts, needlepoint, everything.

When I got there the first person I saw was Brandon Mably and I just went up to him and introduced myself (like he had any idea who I was). I mentioned that I read Franklin Habit's post about the knitting workshop BM did and how it just opened Franklin's eyes to color.

BM didn't quite remember who Franklin was (as if I know who FH is -- ah, the power of blogs that make you think you know complete strangers), but when I mentioned Chicago and the Franklin's 1000 knitters photo project, he remembered. He said that he doesn't always know how effective he's been, so it's nice to hear this kind of feedback.

I think this was also a freaky example of the power of blogging. I told him that Franklin's blog post made me want to take his workshop, if he ever comes back to Atlanta.

Then I posted all of the above on FH's post on BM, just to complete the circle.

So, it's now November, I've brought in the house plants and turned on the heat at home. I'm still working on Sister's Top-down Raglan Cardigan in Manos del Uruguay in Eclipse, using Cosmic Pluto's pattern. Love the Manos! I love the way they dye the yarn different colors like ever two inches. The colors are so deep and vibrant. One day Husband and I went to the Silver Comet Trail to exercise. I was in the throes of work stress and didn't walk as long as I usually do, so I got back to the car before Husband. Pulled out the Top-down Raglan Cardigan and sat on the bench and knit, reveling in the gorgeous colors.

The body is too loose and short, so I'll have to rip back and re-knit. But with a yarn this beautiful, it's no hardship.

And I'm still carting around Brother-in-Law's vest, in KnitPicks superwash worsted, in the color Truffle. Which is a mid-brown with a hint of grey. Not inspiring at all, but it's for a guy. No man-stripe across the chest, like I did for my brothers' vests. Instead, I'll use a contrasting color stripe in the ribbing around the neckline, armholes, and bottom hem. Probably a green or blue. Yes, still not exciting. But it's my portable project, stockingnett in the round, so I don't look at it while knitting anyway.

Plus I'm begining to sew together Husband's afghan, using single crochet.

But I want to start something new! I only have 3 projects on the needles. That's got to be an all time low.

So I pulled out some of KF's quilting and knitting books. I want to make something using my stash and his motto of "When in doubt, add 20 more colors!." I have at least 5 skeins of Malabrigo in purple, blues, yellow, and green. In many of KF's patterns, he mixes colors by holding 2 strands together, or inserts one row randomly using a different color yarn. This adds another layer of color, in case 20 colors wasn't enough. Go look at his knitting and you'll know what I mean.

The Malabrigo is kettle dyed, meaning the yarn goes from light, medium, and dark within the same skein. So I'd get the color mixing without having to work so hard.

So I'm leaning towards making a shawl using KF's Super Triangles motif. As he said in his talk, it uses a ton of colors, but you're knitting with only 2 colors per row. So I'm thinking a shawl using different colors every row, leaving the loose ends out as fringe.

Some people hate the Atlanta traffick. I use it to daydream about knitting, quilting, and pottery.