Safe Asset Giveaway

edited to add: comments on this post are now closed...thanks for entering!!

What a weekend! It all started off early Friday evening with a gorgeous, sunny, traffic-free drive over the bridge and into town with my lovely friend Marcy. We were en route to this LQS (where I used to work & teach) for a quick look around before heading out to the University of British Columbia golf club for a bite to eat. You see, we had a very important date with quilting royalty at 7:30..........who could it be, you ask?

Well, how about none other than Lord Kaffe himself? And his adorable and equally talented design studio manager, knitwear and fabric designer Brandon Mably? They were in Vancouver kicking off a 6 week lecture/workshop tour which will take them throughout Canada and the U.S. en route to Houston for fall market.

Please excuse my OHMYGODI'MSTANDINGBESIDEBRANDONMABLYANDI'MSOEXCITED!

expression below.

Brandon is wearing a super funky shirt made from his Dapple line with accents of Kaffe's aboriginal dots. He introduced Kaffe (announcing 'His Highness' when calling him to the microphone), by first establishing the correct pronunciation of Kaffe's name. It rhymes with 'safe asset', NOT a French coffee shop. I think it was good to get this out of the way, because just standing in the line of 150 women waiting to get into the hall, I heard about 5 different pronunciations! Did you know Kaffe changed his name in his teens? Brandon advised that we not ask why, or what his original name was, because he wouldn't tell us anyway.

Kaffe spoke for about an hour, I think. I sort of lost track of time! The slides were photos of many of the projects and rooms in his books as well as some shots of inspirational patterns or landscapes seen in nature, architecture, or piles of old tires; Kaffe and Brandon travel the world for much of the year and find inspiration in myriad places. There were several shots of new quilts and sets from the new book Quilts en Provence. Much of the discussion was the concept of simple shapes and how he uses them in design repeats...you can get a sense of the lecture from this brief video .

He talked about Big Sur ("California has very little colour, the light is just too harsh"), his brief few months in art school ("when they brought out that spinning cardboard wheel with secondary, tertiary and all that, I just thought, this is NOT where colour comes from, so I left"), and finding his place in the beautifully aged and weathered country homes and gardens of Britain. If I took anything away from Kaffe's presentation, it is that he utterly unapologetic about his choices, style, design aesthetic and process. The man has opinions and he's not afraid to share! He even admitted using the term Red Necks during a lecture in Paducah, Kentucky (it was the first time he was boo'd....he claims he left town quickly).

Like so many of you I'm sure, I collect Kaffe Fasset fabric because it is gorgeous. It has depth, feeling, romance, history and charm not to mention glorious colour. Kaffe says that's because he paints it, in full scale, for his production company. Do you suffer the same problem I do? That you just can't cut it up?

If so, I've got a treat for you & your stash. In celebration of meeting Kaffe on my one year blogiversary, I've got this gorgeous fat quarter pack of 5 of Kaffe's delectable fall prints to give away to one lucky reader. This great pack was bought at a quilt show yesterday from one of my favourite local vendors.

For my pals in the U.S., did you know Canadian FQ's have 40 sq.inches more than a U.S. FQ? That's because our fabric is cut off the bolt in metres, not yards, so our FQ's are 20" x 22"!!

Leave a comment on this post for one entry, and if you feel like sticking around to see who else I met this weekend, then become a follower for a second entry (leave another comment letting me know you are a Poppyprint follower). I'll keep comments open until Thursday, October 7th at 9 p.m. PST at which time the random number generator will pick a winner.

Good luck!!