A day with Kaffe and Brandon..

...yes, THAT Kaffe and Brandon!

Yesterday I was lucky enough to attend a whole day workshop with Kaffe Fassett and Brandon Mably at Amitie here in Melbourne.

The room was filled with many lovely ladies (and a 3 gentlemen!), anticipation, colourful fabric, music, lots of chatter (and some singing!), yummy food, laughter, inspiration, learning and discovery.

There were a couple of familiar faces there! :)

Cathy from Cabbage Quilts and Andi from Patch Andi.


We all worked on our own version of Kaffe's  Bordered Diamonds quilt from his book with Liza Prior Lucy, Simple Shapes and Spectacular Quilts.

The friendly staff at Amitie were kept busy cutting fabric, making endless cups of tea and coffee and provided us with delicious food.


Even though most people chose to use predominantly fabrics designed by Kaffe Fassett, Brandon Mably or Philip Jacobs there was a huge difference in the look of each quilt.
One lady chose to use all Liberty fabrics, another used florals with metallic highlights and a couple of others used quite different fabrics.

I had never used a design wall before. Here is the beginning of my quilt.

The beginning of my design.

An extra row of diamonds added.

With some of the borders added.

I chose a pallete of blues and greens with a hint of pink. I usually procrastinate over fabric choices and I feel intimidated by colour, especially saturated colour such as in these fabrics.
Both Kaffe and Brandon walked around the room offering advice and fabric suggestions.


We worked very quickly and almost everyone had the fabric chosen, cut and placed for their quilt by the middle of the afternoon. I chose the colours of my borders by picking the fabric I would usually least likely chose.
 

By the end of the afternoon I this is what I had.

During the last hour of the day Kaffe walked around the room and critiqued each quilt. Often the most unexpected combinations of fabrics worked the best.

Kaffe also stayed around to sign books.

Me and Kaffe Fassett!!

We all had a wonderfully inspiring day. The room was full of energy. I was exhausted by the time I got home, but I came home with a brand new confidence in my ability to work with colour!
It was a great day! :)  I feel very lucky and priviledged that I had the opportunity to learn from such masters of colour!