The Kaffe Fassett Event

Kaffe Fassett had his first knitting pattern published in Vogue Knitting in 1986. At the time, I was a junior in college, happily knitting my way through All Sweaters in Every Gauge and Knitting in Vogue, the only two knitting books I owned. I made sweaters for many of my friends; in fact, one of them recently shared a photo of hers on Facebook. She has kept it for all these years. Kaffe entered the scene during those years and nothing in the knitting world has ever been the same since. And now he quilts.

If you had told me back in 1986 that some 40 years later, I would be in a quilt class taught by Kaffe Fassett—in Montana—I doubt I would have believed you, for lots of reasons. And yet here I am, because life is funny that way.

On Monday afternoon, I went to Flathead High School and helped to set up for the Kaffe lecture. The store put up a pop-up shop in the commons area outside the auditorium, so we unpacked boxes of quilts for display and bolts of Kaffe Fassett Collective fabric to sell. I wore one of my Kaffe wideback tops. Marianne told us later that they had cut and sold 307 yards of fabric before and after the lecture.

And then, the big event:

(We were asked not to take photos during the actual lecture.)

Brandon Mably, who has worked with Kaffe since 1990, came out and got the audience warmed up. He and Ashlee handed out door prizes. And then Kaffe came out and walked us through the most fascinating story about learning to knit and learning to quilt. He took questions from the audience afterward. Both he and Brandon are very engaging and entertaining.

Yesterday morning, I packed up my sewing supplies and headed to the store. Twenty lucky women—including me—had been able to get into one of the two classes. I chose the Economy Quilt class. The Economy quilt block is an old block pattern.

When I arrived, Brandon asked what fabrics I had brought, which weren’t many. First, I wasn’t entirely sure what kinds of fabrics to pull. Second, my stash is a bit light on the kinds of fabrics we ended up using—big, bright florals. Brandon assigned Kaffe to go shopping with me in the store. Kaffe asked me what color I wanted to use and I said, without hesitation, “Yellow.” I love yellow and I can’t wear it because I look like death warmed over.

I think Kaffe took that as a challenge. We went through the store and he picked out about 14 bolts of fabric—both conventional prints and batiks—in yellows as well as yellows leaning to both green and orange. I had stripes. I had prints. I had a huge variety of fabrics and I had no idea what to do with them. He told me to get half a yard of each.

The store had put up individual flannel design walls for each student. We were instructed to cut 11" blocks from our fabrics and arrange them in checkerboard fashion, alternating lights and darks. I happened to be stationed closest to the door from the classroom into the store, so the store staff kept coming in and suggesting other fabrics to add. I joked that we were designing my quilt by committee. Brandon and Kaffe walked around and made comments and suggestions, some of which were conflicting. 🤪

By lunchtime, I had this:

We put 8" squares on point on top of the 11" squares, then put a 5" square in the center. I should mention that I had the only yellow quilt in the bunch. Everyone else stuck to blues, earth tones, or pinks and reds.

We were not allowed in the classroom during lunch. The day was beautiful, so we sat outside in the parking lot. At the end of lunch, Kaffe and Brandon walked around and looked at each quilt and conferred with each other before they allowed us back into the classroom.

Those 5" squares were the ones giving me trouble. Kaffe wanted those blocks to be florals. Ashlee suggested some graphic prints, some of which I liked. Kaffe wanted some pops of black florals. Brandon disagreed with him. I know what I want, which will go into the final design, LOL.

I added another column of blocks, and then we went shopping for border fabrics. I love love love the border fabrics for my quilt.

At that point in the class, everyone was being so generous and sharing fabrics. We were fussy cutting bold prints and that gets costly after a while. Some of the extra black florals that I had cut for my quilt ended up in other people’s designs, and I took a few contributions from my tablemates. During the conversation, it turned out that the husband had done concrete work for the lady sitting next to me. Life in a small town.

At the end of class, Kaffe walked around the room and stopped at each design board to critique each quilt. (This is a bad photo because I was getting so much backlighting.)

His comments were so helpful. I am excited to finish this quilt. It is so beyond anything I have ever done before.

I was invited to dinner with the store staff and Brandon and Kaffe. We sat outside and enjoyed a delicious meal cooked by Ashlee’s husband and talked for two hours about fabric and teaching and life in general.

Kaffe and Brandon are teaching another class today—a diamond quilt pattern—before heading off to Utah for their next commitment. I told the husband that I think these last few days were the high point of 2025 for me. We owe Marianne and Ashlee so many thanks for making this event happen.

And 20 year-old Janet would be very surprised to find out where she ended up in 2025. 😊