Tuesday 18 June 2013

Rhymes with safe asset


Lots of people had been posting about the Kaffe Fassett exhibition at the London Fashion and Textile museum on FB so I decided that I wanted to go.  In the end with other activities and holidays etc. it turned out that the only date I could make before the exhibition closed was last weekend. Conveniently this co-incided with my Mum's birthday so I could combine the trip to London with a trip to the folks!




I asked a friend who was in the industry in London where to go to buy fabric, and was informed Goldhawk Road was the mecca! So I headed there in the morning.  Amy was right.  Unfortunately we turned left out of the underground station and completely missed all the fabric shops first time round, then spent a while wandering around before going back to the tube station and turning right.  Then there was a stretch of shops both sides of the road just at the end of Shepherd's Bush market.



Initially I was in shock.  I didn't know where to turn and what to look at - there were so many shops and they were all crammed full of loads of different types of fabric.  I didn't have a plan or shopping list, just the knowledge that I was looking for dressmaking fabrics for a few patterns I've got in mind to try.  After wandering around a few shops, I recovered a bit and started to pick out fabrics that caught my eye - I was trying to stick to cotton or cotton mixes as I think I need to practise a bit with these easier fabrics before attempting some more of the challenging ones.

I picked up and number of cotton prints, a cotton lawn print and some super cheap silky stuff which I think was a cotton/poly mix.  I don't know why but I always gravitate towards blues and purples when I'm looking at anything (this applies to plants as well as fabric) and I wanted to expand my palette a bit so I told Mal that I wasn't to buy those colours.  He was very strict about not letting me buy anything with blue in it! It was torture! 

But then we went off to LFTM to see Kaffe's exhibition and I got to see what colour was all about (see what I did there?!).  It really was quite cool, as you can see from the pictures.  I don't know how he does it but he manages to mix lots of bright and bold colours together without making it look overpowering. He seems to have a fascination with Snowball quilts as well (although I don't seem to have any photos of them...).  My favourite was the diamonds quilt - I think because of the fabric and colour combinations.




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