I'm here today at the Festival of Quilts,
how lucky am I, we haven't had it for a year,
so it's a real honour to be here.
And even more so, to be able to interview the fantastic
and wonderful and talented K-facet.
So welcome to the Festival of Quilts.
Well, thank you very much,
and what a fantastic thing to be here at last.
I lost, I lost.
I feel like we've waited for seven years for this.
Just feel a bit like that, isn't it?
Thank you for joining us today.
I know that you're a really busy person.
You've got a lot to do.
And so to join us is really, really kind of you.
So most people know about your history
that you were born in San Francisco
and you started your career as a fine artist.
So I want to know, as a child, what did you want to be?
Wow.
That's an amazing question.
Something theatrical, I think.
I was always painting myself and putting on costumes
and appearing in public as some weird porcelain.
So I love the idea of dressing up and being on a stage.
And in fact, I went to a drama school
when I was quite young, teenager.
And I think that that prepared me to be kind of in the public eye
as well as doing the other things that I do.
So how did you end up deciding to go to fine art school, then?
I had a wonderful teacher of dance.
And she was very powerful woman.
Tamiris was her name.
She said to me, don't fool yourself, cave,
that you're going to be a dancer or something on stage.
You go back to your art.
That's where you're strongest.
And I took her advice.
And I really got stuck into my fine art.
So that's what?
Yeah, that was my real ambition was
to be a painter and to have a reputation.
The great artists of the time were very abstract expressionists
at that time, decooning and France climbs over.
Then I was painting little tea cups and tea pots,
little flowery claws and things.
But I kind of believed in myself with hard
because those times, to be very abstract and wild
was the name of a game.
Yeah, that's why I was going to ask.
So when you first started art, did you
know what direction you were going to go in?
Did you think at that stage, I'm going to be a fabric designer.
I'm going to use color.
I'm going to design knitting.
I think I've always been a romantic who
looked back at history and loved the old historical costumes
and the panache of the past.
And to me, the future or the present
seemed very pedestrian and dull.
As I look back at it now, there was a lot of extraordinary
things happening in the 50s and 60s and 70s and so forth.
But maybe you didn't realize them at the time.
Yeah, I mean, the 70s got more interesting
because we got the hippies coming along
and putting on pattern on pattern and anything
out of a charity shop and making it cool,
particularly when I came to England
and the English girls were so inventive.
What they would do with a charity shop find
and make these wonderful outfits out of table claws
and African robes and things like that,
it was wonderful to see that.
So you thought maybe you'd go into painting?
Yes, I was definitely going to be a fine artist.
I was going to be very strict about it.
And I had a good gallery in New York
and I was painting up big collections of paintings
and bringing them.
But I discovered knitting in the middle of all.
So that leads me nicely on to knitting.
Yes.
So in St. Louis, we have a sister channel called Jan Lane.
Yeah.
And we're on air four times a week.
And we've sold quite a lot of your patterns.
Right.
And we made kits and we've sold the Rhone Felted Tweet
that you've done.
So what really interested in your knitting?
Now, I know that you learned on a train.
Yeah.
Because you went up to Scotland.
Yeah.
And why did you end up at a Scottish knitting mill?
Well, because I had this amazing relationship
with a young, extraordinarily talented designer.
He was a little farm boy from the north of Scotland.
But he had this incredible talent.
And he was Bill Garebe.
I mean, he was like the e-sounds
the wrong of London at that time.
I mean, he came up from nothing.
And I watched him come up through school
and I could see that his drawings were fabulous.
And he had this incredible thing.
So anyway, he said, I'm going to my native land.
And I'm going to look at the old tartans of the past.
And I'm going to get fabrics that I'm going to use
in my fashions.
And I said, I want to go along with you
because I think you should be putting pattern together
with patterned.
I'm looking at old Indian paintings and Persian paintings
where they mixed patterns altogether.
I said, I think that would be a good duration.
But at that stage, you hadn't done any knitting
or knitwear design or anything.
No, not at all.
And when he brought me to this mill
where they were weaving this incredible plaid,
there were these beautiful knitting yarns
to go along with the plaid.
And they were all these looked like vegetable dyed colors,
very natural, very landscapy.
They were the most beautiful elegant colors I'd ever seen.
And so I bought 20 and jumped on the train
and got a woman to teach me how to knit on the way back to London.
I did a day stand up in the carriage and go, can anyone knit?
I was actually a woman in our group that knew how to knit.
And I said to her, you've got to teach me right now
because I can't imagine how I'm going to tell somebody
to knit these beautiful colors and have it come out right.
So what did you find hard for new knitters out there?
You would just learn, you sat there on the train.
What was hard?
What was easy?
Well, what made you get going?
What was hard for me was to bake white bread.
If I were going to bother to cook,
we're going to be show stoppers.
They were going to be party pieces.
So I put 20 colors in my first garment.
And I never wanted, you know, one day I just sit down
and try to knit something in beige.
I thought it was going to go out of my mind.
I never knew where I'd stop to start it.
You know, it was just this endless task.
Whereas knitting with patterns and color,
you're this little part of the pattern, and you keep at it.
You know, you miss your lunch and...
Well, a bit like the sampler scarf you designed.
It's just fantastic.
I mean, it must take hours and hours to knit.
But there are hours that are easy to give
because you're going up this little zigzag
and then into this little checkerboard
and into this little flower print.
You know, that's what draws me into knitting
is the wonderful exploration of pattern.
So what comes first for you?
Is it the actual design? Is it the colors?
Or is it the stitches?
It's always the color.
Always. The color is the most motivating thing.
And then how do you put that color into forms?
Like, first of all, I was doing little fair-eyed patterns
like everyone does.
Yeah.
And I realized that it just looked like kind of vomit
in the wind.
You know, there was no...
You didn't get a sense of color.
You didn't get a stab of red
next to vibrant emerald green, you know.
And I wanted that.
So I started doing bigger bits of pattern
so that it would read like your necklace, you know?
These wonderful flowers, you know, that are sharp.
I wanted that delineation of color.
So that comes first?
Yeah. And then, you know, so that the patterns
came to facilitate the use of the color.
Have you ever tried crochet?
I love crochet.
And when it's beautifully done, there's...
I notice there's one quilt in this exhibition
that it's got crocheted bits to it beautifully done.
But I don't...
I can go around in a circle and make a hat.
About lines and lines.
No, no. I can't do straight lines.
We need to go on a train journey.
Yeah, I'll teach you to crochet.
Oh, lovely.
Because I think it's a beautiful craft.
So I know you're still designing for Rowan.
Yeah.
And working with him on choosing yarns and things.
So how do you go about what's the design process with them?
How do you decide what yarn that you want
to put in the collection with them?
You know, my whole thing in life is giving quilters
and knitters a palette, you know, the paint box.
And so you want them to have all the possibilities.
So you don't want lovely, soft pastels.
But there's...
Well, I think I looked at the range of yarns
that are going around.
There's a lot of gray.
There's a lot of neutral.
There's a lot of soft.
Don't scare the horses' colors.
I wanted to scare the horses.
I wanted to get a bit of jive and jazz into this thing
and make it sexier.
So I started getting vibrant yellows
and beautiful lavenders and scarlets and black and things like that.
So that there was a real crunch when you needed it.
I love to combine it with all the soft, neutral colors
and make some...
Well, you do that a lot in your quilts as well.
There's a big juxtaposition of the sort of the pastels
against the really brights, anyway.
And the same I presume applies to the yarn.
Yeah, yeah.
OK, yeah.
It's choosing colors for yarn different to you
for choosing colors for fabric.
Yes, because every stitch of yarn that you make
has a little shadow in it.
And so it becomes more intense.
It also can get draper, you know,
because when you think you've got a bright color,
if it's slightly dusty,
when you knit it up, it's dustier
because you've got a little shadow on it,
a little stitch.
So the texture of it,
you have to be a little bit bolder
and stronger with your color than you think.
OK, that's quite interesting, isn't it?
Yeah.
So if we move on to fabric now,
when you decide, I'm going to decide a new fabric collection,
where do you start?
How was the first thing?
Well, the way I started my whole fabric collection
was to go to India and get woven fabric done.
Right.
And so I had these beautiful woven stripes and shotguns.
That was a wonderful thing of fiber, you know, crossing fiber.
So you would get two different colors crossing each other
and giving you this kind of material fabric.
So that was a very exciting thing.
And then they said, you know,
we've got these lovely stripes,
but we need some prints to go with them.
And so I started doing prints, and I loved it.
I took to it like a Dr. Water.
And one of the things that I did was scale,
because what I realized was that some of the,
that most of the patterns I had seen,
this was Debbie Mum Time and Little Thimbleberries
and tiny little prints,
which are lovely to work with them,
nothing wrong with them,
except that I wanted something a bit more penache.
So something, you know, like...
Like that.
Yeah.
I mean, the first thing I did was a Swiss chard,
which was not unlike this.
Big Swiss chard.
That's fair like you need a point design, though.
Yeah.
The cabbages and the grate.
Exactly.
Exactly.
So when you do a fabric collection,
you think about variants of scale,
have a big scales and smaller scales.
And then where do you start then on color?
How does that come together?
Well, I start...
I know people love red,
and they've got to have a good red fabric,
so I do that.
And then we've got to have a good blue fabric,
and a good green fabric.
And then we have to have a nice pastel,
and then lately I've been doing gray
and kind of contrast a black and white
in the pattern somewhere,
so that there's this kind of...
Lovely...
Well, I know you knew a new fabric collection.
You started to really explore sharp contrast.
Yeah.
Where has that come from?
Well, by just looking at old quilts
and seeing what works.
Okay.
And seeing that every once in a while
there's a jazzy little print
that has quite a nice sort of profile,
and it's showing up.
And my eye is spotting that.
So the kind of the black and white
against the color?
Exactly.
I know you've introduced that.
Exactly.
If it's all lovely colors,
and it can end up looking like a bowl of chapsuli.
You know?
There's no bear there.
You know, you need a little fresh accent,
you know, sharpness here and there.
So when you design the fabric,
do you draw and paint it first?
Yeah.
Is that how it is?
Yeah, yeah.
You draw it all out.
All paint.
Yeah, you do it out.
And I paint it by hand.
Okay.
I've worked with people on computers,
and I'm never as satisfied
as when I sit down and mix my paint
and actually paint it on.
I get a better result.
And I'm thinking because it's the process
working with your hands,
the creative ideas are flowing.
I'm thinking for the next color way
I'm going to do so and so.
That's all going on while I'm painting out one.
So when you do a fabric design,
I know you know when you've done your oranges
and all the different colors.
Yeah.
Do you paint those yourself in the different colors?
Oh, yes.
Oh, definitely.
It's not just...
What I do is I print out the first color way
or the lightest color way.
And then I sit down
and I paint right over that print out
all the different colors,
the different combinations.
Okay.
So I get everything in the right place
and it's quick and easy to do.
And then once I presume somebody then puts them
into the computer and then it's printed out,
how much say do you then get the design process
or how much involvement you get after this?
Oh, they send all the first examples
of the printing to me.
So I get...
So I get to look at everything
and I say, this one's fine,
this one has got a big mistake
and the colors aren't in the right order
or they're not intense enough in the background
or whatever.
And so I correct that.
Okay.
And then the next strike offer,
I could get like three strike offs
and then they want you to be done.
But they should write nothing.
This is enough already.
So you have to get really good at what I do is
I pick a color that they've already printed
so that I know that the color is going to be exactly what I want.
Okay, so that's good.
So you have quite a lot of involvement in that.
Yeah, yeah.
So your new design, your K-facet,
past the K-facet collective.
Yeah.
Do you work with Brandon and Philip Jacobs of this?
Yeah.
Why did you choose those two?
Well, first of all, I chose Philip
because he was a fabulous designer
of furnishing fabrics.
And so he had scale, big P&E roses
and gorgeous, you know, size prints.
And I like that, the scale.
And also he was very careful about his botanical drawing.
He was very accurate.
And I like that, the old-fashioned approach to design.
So that took care of him.
And then what he did, the first thing he said to me was
I really don't like doing colorways.
And I said, imagine to my ears because I love doing them.
So you just step aside, I will do all your colors.
And so I do all the colors for Philips.
I just respond to the fabric.
You know, if it reminds me of something that should have a grey background
and be sort of softer, then I'll go with that.
I just respond to what's there.
But anyway, when we come to Brandon,
what we had was a guy who is self-taught
has this absolute fresh approach to design.
It's like, you know, I often say when people say to me,
you know, what does art mean to you?
And I say, well, have you ever seen a boring child's drawing?
They don't exist.
They're fabulous.
Every child has this instinctive way,
unless they're completely pressed down.
They have a wonderful way of expressing themselves.
Well, Brandon is the eternal child.
And his designs are so fresh.
And they're very graphic.
And so he...
Well, he's a maze fabric.
He's wonderful, isn't he?
Yes.
Very graphic, but a really good background.
I showed him an old Dutch tile.
And I said, you know, in the corners,
they're doing this weird little geometric thing.
And he took that idea and made it completely his own.
And that's it.
That's the thing is, he responds to an idea very, very well.
And he has this complete confidence to do it in his own style.
And his jumble, I'm just looking here and his things.
You know, these become classics.
And they fill our collections.
And they compliment.
They're that little bit of nice geometric sharpness.
So they do compliment what you do, then.
Totally.
Like, you know, when we do our books,
I lay the whole book.
I don't lay it out.
I let somebody lay it out.
And then I say, all right, you're really up to this point.
And then you completely lose the plot.
Okay.
You've got to get a wider shot here.
We've got to do this.
We've got to make this a bigger picture.
This is smaller picture.
And so all of that is controlled from our studio.
You know, because in the old days,
I used to just let people do the books.
And then they wouldn't quite be right.
And they didn't sell the vision that we had.
Now.
So somebody else puts thesis.
Now.
But if you were given one of these,
what would you do with it?
Oh, I would love it.
What would you do with it?
What I would do is look through.
I would throw them all over the floor so that you can look at them all, spread out.
And then just start to play.
You know, the idea that you have these, like that little buttons.
I love that.
You know, which is a tight little pattern.
And then you've got Brandon's shark's teeth.
You know, look at the fresh, how that little saturated color
with that very fresh, cutting black and white.
Wonderful.
So would you just simply join them together?
Would you want to be cutting and piecing and pinwaying and half square?
Oh, I cut everything and put it up on the wall.
I have this work wall, you know, which is the design wall.
Oh, the design wall.
Yeah, the design wall, which is invaluable.
Before I discovered that, I usually just fold up things like handkerchiefs on the floor
and stand on a bed and try to get it right.
And it never was quite right.
Whereas when you have that wall and you can place your pieces and you can arrange the whole quilt,
you can see it take away all the things that don't work, add the things to do.
This is the most invaluable tool, I think.
We sell them on site, and I know they're very popular because...
Yeah, well, they should be.
They're a great, great tool for working.
So the book, the book, the new book, close in an English village.
Your 23rd book.
Yeah.
23rd.
So I know you've written books from everywhere from the Cotswolds to Barano.
Why laugh on them?
Well, I mean, obviously, laugh on them is beautiful, but why...
Well, what I always do is when I'm going to do a book,
I try to think of a location that has my paint box possibilities.
Right.
You know, I try...
Enough color.
You know, like people will say, you must come to our little town in Italy,
and I'll say, well, show me pictures of that little town.
And the whole town is carved out of stone, so it's one color.
It's the color of...
Stair.
You know, carved, you know, lovely, honey color.
But that's one possibility.
We've got quilts that are pink and black.
And green and red and blue.
So, you know, you want all of that.
Well, Lavenham was a town that I was taken to when I first started to knit.
Oh, and so long time ago.
Yeah, long time ago.
And I remember going through that town and thinking,
what great knitting patterns these buildings would be.
They're all these half-timbered buildings.
These great patterns, geometric patterns.
But the colors behind those patterns were so beautiful
that they painted things, you know, primrose yellow and pale green
and soft apricot color.
Oh, my goodness.
And so, when I went back there, and after all these years,
there's still enough colored buildings that it made it just a wonderful location.
Did they refine them?
Sorry?
Did they repaint them?
They must do.
They keep them like that.
Yeah, they must do.
They keep it going.
And that's what I said, the introduction to my book was,
thank you to this town for preserving these beautiful old buildings,
keeping them in good neck.
So, we see that beautiful craftsmanship,
that beautiful sense of order of the old artisans
and these wonderful colors.
And that town keeps it going.
It's so wonderful.
And it's off the beaten track.
It's a tiny little place.
So, did you choose the place?
When you choose the place.
Oh, I totally chose the place.
Yes.
And when you decided, did your design say,
did you stay there?
Did you just go and take a photo?
Yes, well, yeah, we stayed right in the middle
and walked out every morning.
You know, a lot of our shoot would be like seven o'clock in the morning.
You know, because we would just creep out
and we would see something as the sun was coming up
on a beautiful apricot colored building
and you'd have your quilt just tuning in with it.
It was the most wonderful shoot.
The photographer and I afterwards said,
this is one of the happiest shoots we've ever done.
We were really delighted with it.
So, what's your favorite quilt from the whole book?
You know, one of my favorites is this one that's on the table.
Okay.
And this particular one of Philip Jacobs
in these very soft colors with that gray background
is one of my favorites, too.
It is beautiful, one, isn't it?
I mean, and obviously it's all the cotton candy pinwheels.
Yes, cotton candy pinwheel.
Beautiful, isn't it?
So, you work with Lisa Pryon-Lucy on this book.
So, and you've known her for a long time.
Absolutely.
She's obviously an expert quilter.
So, why did you decide to work with her on this book?
Well, she is one of those people who was a yarn rep.
And she went out and she found my book in New York.
And she was so excited about it.
She couldn't believe it that somebody had written a knitting book.
She was in this knitting world.
But anyway, she bought six copies of the book and sent them
to her mother and all of her best friends.
And that night, the company called her up and said,
would you be a rep for our yarns?
And she said, oh no, I've got too many things going on.
And they said, well, we've got cave facet in this new book,
Gloria's knitting.
And she went, I could have had them wholesale.
Anyway, she decided to join our group.
And she understood me.
She absolutely understood what I was doing with the colors of the knitting
and the old patterns and everything.
And so, one day, she called me up and she said,
I'm starting to work with patchwork.
And I've had a baby and I'm making patchwork clothes.
And you should get into it, cave.
I said, I'm too busy with needle points and knitting and painting.
And I mean, she said, no, really get into it.
And she started making, taking my knitting patterns
and making them into blocks.
Well, I was going to say, is it true she introduced you to quilting?
Yeah, absolutely.
She dragged me into a kicking and screaming.
So we've got a lot to thank her for them.
So when you work together, how do you decide who's going to do
the quilt? Is it a collaboration?
Yeah.
Well, they like me to do most of the designs in the book.
So that's a kind of given.
But she soves them for me.
So I mock everything up on my work wall.
And then I send the pieces to her.
And she says that cut too small, just dingy.
So she really cuts everything and soves it together beautifully.
And then she does her own versions for the book as well.
Yeah, now I've seen that there was some of that specifically to her.
But in your designs, well, particularly with this one,
you use a lot of pinwheels and tumbling blocks,
which are very geometrical shapes.
Yeah.
But that sort of positioned with your fabric, which isn't.
Yeah.
Is that why you mixed the two?
I'm a traditional quilter.
Okay.
You know, I looked at the history of quilting.
And that's what dragged me into it really.
Because when Eliza suggested it, I thought,
well, some of the most beautiful art I've ever seen on the face of this planet
are patchwork quilts.
And so I was ready to get into that world really,
even though I resisted it.
But I love the traditions.
And if it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I can't see any reason to be doing far out and reinventing the wheel all the time.
Because there's so much of that beautiful language of the blocks,
the old blocks, that I'm very happy just to stay there.
And I find that they work with the big patterns I've got.
I find ones that have bigger pieces in them,
so that they really express, you know, when I've got a big,
you know, these things that can really show it,
rather than chopping it up into tiny pieces.
I think it works really well.
I think mixing the sort of the big floor curved prints
with the geometry of the quilting works really well.
So, who made all the quilts in the book?
Did you make them?
Well, the quilts, some of the quilts are made by Liza
and designed by Liza.
But there's also a wonderful group here in England called Janet Hague
and her studio.
Julie and Alaria are two of the most fabulous quilt makers.
Well, I call it fabulous quilt makers.
Some of you can throw a design,
this kind of half-baked ad.
And they take it and they make the best out of it.
And they understand what it is you're trying to express.
And the maths.
And the maths.
And, you know, the correct sewing.
Yes, all of that.
And the same allowance.
Yeah, exactly.
And it's beautiful.
And they are absolutely brilliant.
And it's wonderful when I have a big show of quilts
and they come along to the show.
I'm so proud that they can see...
Well, it's lucky you've got a stand here with all of the quilts
and it is stunning to see the whole collection together.
Yeah.
And they made them.
Wow.
That's right, yeah.
Okay.
And one thing we forgot about was Harry Potter.
Did you know?
Yes.
Yes.
When you chose Love and Them.
I absolutely didn't know.
Because I haven't really been a follower of Harry Potter that much.
But this was his birthplace.
And in the film.
Extraordinary, yeah.
Amazing, isn't it?
Well, I mean, it's not surprising because it has such a sense of history.
Yes.
Particularly that wonderful big building in the middle,
which they use in this house.
Yes.
It's just a brilliant.
I think it's quite atmospheric as well.
I think it's a medieval village originally, isn't it?
Absolutely.
So, for a complete beginner,
what would you suggest they start with in this book?
What's the easiest quilt?
Probably that one is behind us.
The beach.
Peach Sunset, is it cold?
Yes, this one.
I give it to you too.
Hold.
Yes.
I mean, I love...
Yeah.
See, this is just square.
It's really good for that one.
I mean, it's beautiful, isn't it?
With borders.
But this wonderful fabric of Brandon's in the background
just is lovely, soft kind of thing.
Well, it works really well on the stripes against those prints, isn't it?
I like it up that way.
But, yeah.
This is...
I like this.
And then on the back, we have that backing fabric of the big P&E's.
Gorgeous, isn't it?
So, for a beginner, start with that one.
Yeah.
And then work your way through the whole lot.
Yeah.
You work with Debbie Paster and the photographer in this book.
Yes.
How important is the photography in the book?
And what input do you have in it?
The photography is so important.
I've worked with a lot of different photographers through my time.
Because I...
When I couldn't make any money selling my paintings, I used to model.
And so...
Yes.
So, I was just...
Yeah, close.
And, you know, I would go from my house where I had nothing but charity for...
But charity finds.
And I would put on these, you know, suits, velvet suits.
And he's just fantastic things, you know.
And so, I got it out of my system of wearing fancy clothes.
And they didn't let you keep them.
No.
That's really great.
No, far from it.
But anyway, I was one of the cheapest models going.
I didn't make that much money.
But...
So, I got used to a lot of different photographers and their approach.
And when I found Debbie, she had a sense of color.
She understood what I was doing with my color.
But not everyone does, you know.
And she would give me the kind of cropping.
And...
I mean, it's just been wonderful.
I've worked on many, many, many books with her.
And every time we go to do a book, I think of...
Now, how will Debbie photograph this?
Okay.
So, we have a really good relationship.
I can understand those film crews where they have the same cameraman.
Yes, yes.
Sound man and so forth, you know, for years.
So, the quilts, we're going to be selling kits
to make some of the quilts in the books.
Sadly, not all of them.
And we talked about this one.
I love the cottage garden flowers.
I think that's my favorite.
What was your inspiration for that one?
Well, first of all, I love snowball.
That's one of the great...
Okay.
One of the great...
That's it.
There we are.
Here we go.
This is called Instant TV.
Instant TV again.
So, this is taking, you know, big, fussy-cut flowers
and making this snowball design
where you cut the corner off of your flower print
and you make it round, or appear to be round.
And there's something about that that's very exciting.
And then the scale of these, you know, I have big flowers.
So, being able to, you know, zero in on a flower.
So, when you were fussy-cut these, are you quite specific?
You know, would you say to me,
just cut them wherever you want?
Or do you really want them to position the flowers?
You can cut wherever you want.
These have been cut less specifically than I would have done myself personally.
But, even so, it still is very flowery and exciting.
But if people want to see how it really is,
come to the festival.
And I've got, you know, my original one.
Oh, okay.
And you can see the way I zeroed in.
I'm very carefully cut around a big flower to make it really cool design.
Because these hexagons are big, aren't they?
Yeah.
I mean, you know, and sometimes, you know,
getting three quarters of a flower or half a flower is just as effective.
But I like to zero in bang on it.
Oh, it's a big one.
So, this would be quite good for beginners as well, isn't it?
Once you've worked at the festival.
Very, very simple.
You know, we do a workshop on this
where we just have people put up squares of fabric.
And then they take the little corner bits and put it on.
And it's so quick and easy.
And you just sell those on the corner of your square.
And you've got your quilt.
Another one we're doing is the ancient glades,
which is behind you.
Yes.
And I love that one.
It's so green.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Why am I glad?
You know, it's very interesting.
Two young fellows were hanging our exhibition.
And we said to them,
do you like any of the quilts that you're hanging?
And this one guy said,
oh, the one I love is ancient clay.
Exactly.
And he said, it's so intriguing.
He said, every time I look at it,
I see something different.
And it's true that it's more subtle.
More, you know, what I responded to with this
was the mossiness of England.
You really will.
That's due to the wetness.
Yes.
But, you know, the beautiful side of that wedge
is you get these beautiful patches of moss
and lichens and things growing.
They're so beautiful.
And we found these beautiful old gates in this forest
to show them.
Yes, now the very toes in the bushes.
Oh my god.
It was the most fabulous setting.
Beautiful.
I think it's probably my favorite photo.
Yeah.
Which is why.
I don't know if you can hold it up to show.
Just wonderful.
Look at that.
Those gates on.
And you see, you know, just making us think about the mossiness
and the beautiful subtlety of color.
The thing about England is it has these very often
overcast skies.
So you get lovely subtle color.
The gardens become enchanted for me
when I'm used to very harsh, hard light in California.
And, you know, it really does away with the subtlety of color.
It's very hard to see subtlety.
But here in this light, one English woman said to me,
I love England.
It has a pearly light.
A pearly light.
We think there is a grey drizzling light.
That's quite nice.
That's a limit.
To me, it is pearly.
Well, it's one of the others.
Oh, the dark watermelons.
So we have that one there.
Yes.
And is it called that because of the watermelons on it?
That's right.
Exactly.
Particularly, you know, here we've got in the center,
you'll notice this big panel of watermelons.
And it's all quilted round.
I mean, watermelons are really popular.
There's a theme at the moment, but the color choices.
Well, and also it's natural stripes.
So you get the wonderful stripes happening.
Um, leafy diamonds.
We have, I've seen leafy diamonds around here.
Oh, I think I'm saying that.
You're sitting on leafy diamonds.
So what was the inspiration behind that one?
Um, I love diamond shapes because, you know,
you can put a big flower print or a big leaf print
into a diamond shape and it's very stunning.
So, um, you know, I do a lot of diamond shape growth.
Is that good for the sort of a fussy cutting
and the placement of the print then?
Yes, it can be.
Or you can do it any way.
You know, I like a big overall print.
Yeah.
You can just chop it.
And then finally, I think the cotton candy pinwheels,
which is the one on our table that we talked about.
Yes.
It's beautiful, isn't it?
Yeah.
Well, I love soft, dusty pinks.
And, you know, there is just something.
So what do I know?
I'm going to put the one forward.
It's going to be very well, isn't it?
But anyway, yeah.
So, I've had a lovely time with the palette of this.
I mean, it's quite unusual the way you've designed this
because it's not your traditional pinwheel.
You've got one one side and then you've got a stripper.
Yeah.
I was looking at some old wonderful way out, you know.
It is, yeah, it's quite traditional design, isn't it?
Yeah.
So, thank you for today and talking me through this,
but I've got a few questions, quick questions to finish it off.
How do you start your day?
I start my day usually going to the heat
and having a swim in an outdoor pond.
Wow.
Even in the winter when I break the ice for us,
those will be all that I don't do that so much anymore.
But I did for years.
I did that.
So wild water swim in.
Wow.
What are you spending exactly?
Yeah.
Well, sewing or knitting?
Knitting.
I love knitting.
Knitting is one of the most gorgeous things to do.
It's just beautiful.
Pink or blue?
Pink.
To your coffee.
If you had to give one up.
Yeah.
All right.
Tea.
Tea.
And I think I knew the answer to this one
from what you said, the past or the future?
Oh, the past.
Yeah.
I'm an old fashioned old stuck in the mud, you know,
romantic.
I'm looking back all the time.
The past.
What are you most proud of?
Atturning people on and having them overcome their fears
and use color generously.
What makes you really cross?
People being mean and making you do little fussy rules.
Fussy rules about things.
You're all Chrissy.
Yes, you're all Chrissy.
What book have you read the most?
The Road Home by Rose McCauley.
Okay.
Rose Tremaine.
Rose Tremaine.
Yeah.
Absolutely brilliant book.
And I was going to do it for a book club so I had to reread it.
I love rereading it.
It was better than the second time.
Okay.
That's good.
So if you've not read that.
Do you need it?
Do you have any phobias?
Brandon is doing a spider.
Spider.
Yeah.
I don't like spider.
I don't like creepy crawlies.
Tell me an unusual fact about yourself that we wouldn't know.
I don't have a mobile phone.
Really?
Absolutely not.
Wow.
That's interesting.
That is really unusual, isn't it?
Yeah.
That'll be interesting for another question.
What's your favourite food or meal that you couldn't live without?
I would say breakfast.
Oh yes.
Yeah.
A good breakfast.
What would that be?
Set me up for the day.
It'd be fresh fruit and granola.
A really good handmade homemade granola and yogurt and a nice whole meal toast.
That sounds lovely.
And coffee, of course.
And coffee.
Yeah, yeah.
What one possession could you not do without?
And I asked a few people this and they said my mobile phone but you can't do that.
Yeah, all right.
So that's really good.
Um.
Possession.
Can I not do without?
My glasses.
Yes.
I would do you on that.
I've just think why don't I always check to put in my pocket before I leave the house?
I was going to say I did say my sewing machine, but then I could hand sew.
So yeah, you're right.
My glasses.
I've been lost.
What's your favourite film?
And why?
Ooh.
I would say my brilliant career.
It's an Australian film.
Okay.
Absolutely wonderful.
About a girl raised on a farm and with pigs.
But she has this vision.
She wants to be a writer and she wants to go place and do that.
And she becomes this amazing author.
It's a most wonderful film.
Okay.
Yeah.
Very romantic and beautiful score of music.
Um, what do you collect?
Or do you collect anything?
I collect budas.
Okay.
Big fat laughing budas covered with little children sitting on their shoulders and things.
I just love them.
They're old Chinese statues that I have a lot of.
What's your secret to staying young?
My secret to staying young?
Pilates.
Pilates and colour.
I would say colour is like getting a blood transfusion.
Every so often.
Being around colour just keeps your spirits up.
So that's very good.
But Pilates keeps my balance because I am in danger of falling down stairs these days.
You get older and you get older.
You know, weird on stairs.
So you have to watch those things and Pilates helps.
Okay.
Why the UK?
Do you miss America?
I love the old world.
And I love the humour here in England.
I had to get used to the humour here in England.
But what I did, it was very funny and very subtle.
It's quite dry.
It's very dry.
I love that.
I love that.
So, yeah, that's why I would say I've started.
But I like being on the edge of Europe too.
And Scandinavia and all of those countries.
I like being close to the old world.
Okay.
What has been the best part of lockdown for you?
The best part of lockdown for me was going into my archive
and trying to weed out big swatches of knitting that I had done
that were maybe pass or sell my day or something so I could get rid of.
I found that I could get rid of very little.
And I looked at them and I thought,
these should be sewn together into patchwork.
And so I made 35 or 37 huge patchwork things of my knitting samples
all sewn together.
And I want to have an exhibition of them somewhere.
What did you do?
If a museum is listening out there.
Well, I lived just around the corner from the American Museum in Bath.
So I'll go and have a word.
Yeah, yeah.
That would be nice.
Yeah, it would.
What would you like to learn how to do but you haven't had time yet?
Well, there's many things I would like to learn.
More crafts, you know.
Crochet.
Crochet.
Crochet.
To make crocheted lace.
I find crocheted lace absolutely charming.
It's beautiful.
Particularly when I was done in colors.
And I've seen some people do wonderful things with that.
So that would be fun to learn.
Where's your favorite place to go on holiday?
Somewhere like South Africa or Morocco.
You know, that's got a sense of history.
And they're still mired in the past.
I'm loving that past.
So when a past is alive and kicking,
you know, like in the Arab countries,
they're still back in the dark ages.
And I love it.
I love the way they have the old tools and the old fabrics and things.
Okay.
What one thing inspires you the most?
I would say the thing that inspires me the most is people's creativity.
You know, like what people do with our fabrics.
When we look through Instagram and things like that,
and you see how people are taking my fabric
and doing something so fresh and exciting with it.
I think that's very very inspiring.
That's nice, isn't it?
What makes you really happy and laugh out loud?
British humor.
Absolutely.
I mean, I could be, you know, rolling in the aisles over,
you know, particularly on the radio.
There's some wonderful ones.
Radio 4.
Radio 4.
Radio 4 humor is hilarious.
Do you have a favorite shirt?
Because you have some amazing shirts.
I do, I do have some good shirts.
I just bought this recently.
That's a very nice shirt.
I like this very, you know, e-cat simple fresh.
Do I have a favorite shirt?
No.
Because I keep reinventing.
Just whichever.
Yeah, I keep getting more shirts made of our fabrics and it's fun.
So finally, a top tip, knitting.
The top tip I think with knitting is to use color.
And don't be afraid to use, to create patterns.
And to learn how simple it is to do it.
It's not complicated.
It looks bobby dazzler complicated, but it's not.
And I only do the most basic knitting.
I don't do fancy stitches at all.
But, you know, using color and pattern is opening yourself up
into an imaginative world that is rich and rewarding.
Sewing?
Sewing, I do a bit of something.
I sew some of my one-off quilts.
You know, just I'll take a lot of old fabrics and sew them together or whatever.
And I really enjoy sewing.
And I'm not very personicity about it.
I'm not terribly.
The good word.
Exactly.
But if it holds together, that's fine.
So don't worry about the detail.
Exactly.
Designing.
If somebody wants to design, what's he?
I would say the thing about designing is to push the bow down constantly.
You know, get bolder.
If you think of a statement like they used to say about the impressionist painters
that they would take an idea and they would exaggerate it.
So if they saw that snow, the shadow on snow was slightly blue,
they would make it blue lavender in the painting.
Exactly.
You know, they would exactly read it and make you feel it emotionally.
And that's what we want.
Is to feel when we see a wonderful patchwork quilt or whatever.
And so I would say to a designer, exaggerate, you know, go to extremes.
Because then it shows up.
I'm the last one.
How to be happy.
Oh, don't be ashamed to do what you love to do.
And just sit there and do it day after day.
I mean, I sit in my studio and I knit or I stitch a needle point or I sew a quilt binding.
I love to do bindings.
Things like that, you know, those little tasks that are just repetitive and soothing
and make you feel good.
Makes you feel good.
Well, that's lovely.
Thank you so much.
Will you sign the book for us?
I would love to sign the book, yes.
We'll have a special giveaway on our own Saturday and this will be the prize.
All right.
Hansine, by you, especially.
And big and bold.
Big and bold, but not very colourful.
2021, aren't we?
Or is it 22?
No.
21.
I know.
Still.
The years are just sold together.
I know.
2021.
Well, thank you so much.
That has been a pleasure to talk to you.
Lovely.
Thank you.
Good interview.
Oh, thank you so much.
So, thank you so much for talking to me.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
Our sewing street audience are going to love this.
A lot of them can't come to the festival of quilts.
So hopefully we bought a little taste for them here and enjoy the rest of your time here.
Thank you very much.