Kaffe Fassett

Speaker 20:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 20:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen ninety, and the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My castaway this week is a designer and a knitter. Born and brought up in California, it was in Scotland that he came across the inspiration for his career. There, in a woollen mill, he found himself so attracted by the rich colours of the local yarn that on the train home he learnt to knit. His needles haven't stopped clicking since. Famous for his use of rich colours and bold, simple designs, he reflects patterns from the world of art, Roman glass, Islamic ceramics, and Byzantine carpets. Now the author of several best selling books and the manufacturer of some of the world's most expensive knitwear, he lectures all over the world and has been honoured with an exhibition of his work at the Victoria and Albert Museum. He's the man who's made knitting glamorous. He is Caife Fassett.

Presenter1:15

Kafe, if you'd been told as a young man that you'd make your reputation knitting and stitching, I wonder how you would have reacted.

Kaffe Fassett1:21

I think I would have fallen down laughing. I couldn't have imagined it.

Presenter1:25

Was your mother a knitter?

Kaffe Fassett1:26

Well, actually she was, and my sister also is an incredible knitter. I mean, she she knits like a banshee. But I was interested in it. I loved the fact that they were making garments in in one piece of yarn that was being sort of fed into these loops. But it never occurred to me that I was going to do it.

Presenter1:42

Because of course it's it's a craft, isn't it? And you considered yourself an artist.

Kaffe Fassett1:44

That's true.

Kaffe Fassett1:46

Yes, we were above crafts, you know. I mean, you didn't dabble in the crafts if you were going to be a serious painter. That was the whole thing.

Presenter1:52

Do you now think that then that that's a misnomer, craft uh for knitting?

Kaffe Fassett1:57

I think that if you pour your heart and soul into some colours in any form, why isn't that art? I mean, if you arrange pebbles at the beach, or if you put together

Kaffe Fassett2:09

A stunning building or an incredible tapestry. I mean, why isn't that as important? I mean, what makes a painting important? That's the question. And what makes a painting important is that somebody is trying to reveal an impression they have of the world and to share that with other people in a very intense way. And certainly I try to do that in my knitting, you know, pouring hundreds of colors into my fabric so that people can really get a bounce out of looking at a piece of knitting.

Presenter2:35

So you're you're painting with wool, then?

Kaffe Fassett2:37

Absolutely.

Presenter2:39

So will you find any material at all to to weave or to knit with on this desert land, or are you going to have wool as your luxury?

Kaffe Fassett2:45

Oh, I know. I would would run around and get all the natural things and be weaving vines and flower petals and uh little pebbles from the beach and everything. I'm sure there must be millions of natural things that would be just gorgeous, you know.

Presenter2:58

So you could knit yourself a bed, right?

Kaffe Fassett3:00

Oh yes.

Presenter3:01

Now you sit, apparently, I read uh cross legged on your bed at home knitting constantly.

Kaffe Fassett3:06

That's right. You've done your homework. That's true.

Presenter3:09

So, what are you going to do? I have this picture of you sitting under a palm tree, cross-legged, knitting away.

Kaffe Fassett3:14

Probably

Presenter3:14

Listening to beautiful music. Now, what kind of music?

Kaffe Fassett3:18

Well, things that remind me of the way life started for me. Because as I get further along in life and things get more and more significant and more sort of amazing, I realize that those early starts, the things you know, when my feeling for color and for working with people began to emerge. I mean, the first piece is a piece that my father played all the time in the house when I was growing up, this great rolling symphony, and we all used to run around and dance to it, and he was very expansive and would be singing the tune of it. And that's just Symphony on a French Mountaineer, which I just love.

Presenter4:51

Part of the symphony On a French Mountain Air by Vincent Dandy, played by the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Charles Munch.

Presenter4:59

The concept cafe of a a man knitting is not an entirely new one,'cause soldiers and sailors used to knit, didn't they? If only to their socks or are there any famous male knitters in history?

Kaffe Fassett5:10

Well, Albert Einstein is the one name that comes to my mind. I mean, when I was growing up in the fifties, I was always hearing about Einstein knitting between projects and to calm his mind down and to clear his thinking. And I certainly, when I'm knitting, it's the most therapeutic thing in the world. It's the one thing

Kaffe Fassett5:27

It's funny, when I go to paint in my studio I get terribly lonely and terribly antsy and want to do anything but be in that studio. When I'm knitting, the hours, the weeks fly by and I have no sense of time. I'm just so happy. It's the most enjoyable pastime I've ever had in my life.

Presenter5:43

But do you do other things at the same time? Do you read or watch the video?

Kaffe Fassett5:46

I listen to Radio 4. I do. I mean, it's the most perfect radio medium. In fact, I dedicated my first book to Radio 4. I said thank you, you know, because it was such an I love actually listening to Radio here.

Presenter5:55

Yeah.

Presenter5:58

But you're a fast knitter, I can imagine.

Kaffe Fassett5:59

Very fast. Well, after twenty three years I better be fast.

Presenter6:01

And you don't look at what you're doing.

Kaffe Fassett6:03

No, I do look at what I'm doing. That's why I don't watch television. No, I'm I'm concentrating very much and I'm looking at the colors, because I'm constantly building up little patches of intense colour. So one has to look and see is that working? Is that exciting? Is that juicy? And you have to keep putting the work up on the wall and standing back and looking at it like a painter.

Kaffe Fassett6:21

even though it's the sleeve of his sweater.

Presenter6:23

How do you then decide how many I mean, you've got to know how many stitches to cast on in the first place. Do you work it all out mathematically first or do you create on the thing?

Kaffe Fassett6:29

Yeah.

Kaffe Fassett6:30

I I mean, I just look at someone and I think, oh, she's roughly about one hundred and fifty stitches on number nines and cast down and get rolling. And if and if it turns out she can't fit into it at the end, I say, right, based on that, I'll knit another one and I sell that to someone else.

Presenter6:44

But somebody's got to do the dirty work. You've got to decide how to decrease the armhole so it fits the front and all that.

Kaffe Fassett6:47

Going to dis

Kaffe Fassett6:50

Well, I worked with an incredible genius called Zoe Hunt. For years and years and years she worked with me and she would take my rough swatches of knitting and she would take them home and make them into garments for me and then work out the patterns for them. That's uh quite a difficult thing to do actually.

Presenter7:05

So these days you would have a a a team of knitters to to make one garment, would you?

Kaffe Fassett7:10

Yes, that's well, no, I mean, e each each knitter would knit one garment. I would give her the swatch. No, I mean, Zoe's moved on, but I've I've got other knitters now who take my work and and develop it.

Presenter7:21

So you just create the pattern and then they would adapt it to fit the sleeve and make sure the raglan was there with the pattern continuing across the front and all that sort of thing.

Kaffe Fassett7:24

Even make sure

Kaffe Fassett7:26

Yeah.

Kaffe Fassett7:28

Exactly. Exactly. And I'm checking it each step of the way.

Presenter7:29

Come on!

Presenter7:30

How long then would it take to make, let's say, a sort of bulky cardigan?

Kaffe Fassett7:36

About two weeks average per garment.

Presenter7:39

And what would it cost?

Kaffe Fassett7:41

Oh, lots. If people are getting once off projects from us, from seven hundred pounds up to two thousand pounds, but they can go out and buy a kit which we've designed with all the yarns in it for about fifty to one hundred and fifty pounds.

Presenter7:56

But if you personally, Kay Fattit, have have gnat it, then it's going to cost a lot more.

Kaffe Fassett7:59

And then he's got

Kaffe Fassett8:01

That's right.

Presenter8:02

Next record. What's that to be?

Kaffe Fassett8:04

Well, the next record is Joan Baez. Growing up in in Big Sur, I just fell in love with her voice. I mean, I was in my teens, I guess, late teens, when she arrived on the scene, and she moved into Big Sur. And I used to know her, you know, nodding acquaintance uh moving around Big Sur. And I think her voice is just

Kaffe Fassett8:23

personifies that age. And it was also my first taste of England. This is Mary Hamilton, wonderful English ballad, and I just it's something that makes me remember that I began to think about coming to England in those early days.

Speaker 48:38

Word is to the kitchen gone.

Speaker 48:44

And word is to the home.

Speaker 48:50

And word is up

Kaffe Fassett8:50

One word is all

Speaker 48:52

To Madam the Queen, and that's the worst of

Presenter8:59

Joan Byer singing Mary Hamilton and memories of Big Sir in California, where she lived and you spent your childhood, which by all accounts CAFE was a rather unconventional business.

Kaffe Fassett9:09

Yes, very. First of all, it was population 300, a wild, wild piece of coastline that was absolutely stunning. It was like a Japanese print, you know, with great redwood trees growing down to the ocean and mists coming in fingers up the canyon. And we built a restaurant on a little piece of land that was on a sort of little mountain that stuck out in the ocean. So we had forty miles of coastline view from the terrace of this restaurant.

Presenter9:37

What sort of restaurant?

Kaffe Fassett9:38

Well, the food wasn't very important, but it was very glamorous. It was designed by a Frank Laird Wright student, and it has huge terraces where you can sit out in front of a great big fire and look at this incredible view of the mountains and the coastline and the ocean.

Presenter9:53

And what sort of clientele, then?

Kaffe Fassett9:54

Well, people came from all over the world. I mean, people came from France and England and Spain. I mean, it was just extraordinary. And dance troupes would come from Russia, and it would be nothing on that terrace to have a concert of chamber music or an incredible big Ukrainian dance troupe dancing, or Balinese troupe, or something. Also, I mean, there were writers and artists and painters and musicians and things coming, so that we were constantly talking to people who

Kaffe Fassett10:20

were realizing their fantasies and their visions in the world. So I mean to me, all you had to do was sit and dream and then go and make something. So I mean I'd run upstairs and paint some great cardboard mask or something and

Kaffe Fassett10:32

I realized, you know, the seeds of what I'm doing in my life now were started there.

Presenter10:36

Must have been difficult as a child at school, though, if that was the kind of home life you led.

Kaffe Fassett10:40

Yes, it was terribly difficult. I wore my hair like the Beatles, and this was years before the Beatles ever turned up. I mean, like putting a pudding base down my head and cutting right around this great big sort of floppy bangs, you know. And I also wore color. I mean, you remember this was the days of beige and black and grey. And I would go to school in tangerine trousers and I would dye my tennis shoes bright pink and wear Kelly green. I mean, nothing now. I mean, you know, you go to any high school nowadays and the kids are all dressed in these colors. But boy, in those days, I was like, you know, this incredible wild freak.

Presenter11:16

And you changed your name.

Kaffe Fassett11:18

And I changed my name. I found an Egyptian book about a little boy. It was called Kaif, and I just loved the sound of that, you know, Kaif. And I just.

Kaffe Fassett11:27

grabbed it and and became that person.

Presenter11:29

It's a kind of romantic whim, really.

Kaffe Fassett11:31

Yeah, it certainly was.

Presenter11:32

The problem is, you it's just given you a problem the rest of your life because nobody knows how to spell it and everybody mispronounces it well exactly.

Kaffe Fassett11:37

Cafes couldn't be afraid.

Presenter11:39

So do you often wish you'd never done that?

Kaffe Fassett11:41

Well, the w the way people remember it in America is this little Jewish girl that that uh sells my knitting kits and things, and she goes into the shops and she says, Look, let's get it straight. You've got a safe asset with cafe facet.

Presenter11:56

Let's have your third record there. What's that?

Kaffe Fassett11:59

Well, my third record is from an incredible film called My Brilliant Career, and it was about this kind of

Kaffe Fassett12:06

Girl growing up in the country

Kaffe Fassett12:08

Longing for amazing fantasy in her life. She wanted to be an opera singer or a writer or anything, it didn't matter. And she plays the piano in this dusty farmhouse, and they don't understand her, and they want her to go out and milk the cows and get in the mud and do things. And she just wants to build this incredible fantasy. And she plays this piece of music over and over and over again. And it's just a Schumann piece that I just love every time I hear it.

Speaker 212:31

Oh.

Presenter13:26

Part of Schumann's Scenes from Childhood, the main theme of the film My Brilliant Career, played there by Sharon Rashke.

Presenter13:33

It seems, Kaif, that in your late teens and early twenties you dabbled in a variety of different artistic pursuits acting, modelling, dancing, painting. Did you feel you were looking for something, or were you simply that certain kind of student, that sort of all ambition and no application?

Kaffe Fassett13:50

Yeah.

Kaffe Fassett13:51

Yes, that's very well put, Sue. I certainly was very, very interested in doing something, you know, and I wanted to start right at the top. It's very interesting because my partner once tried to teach me how to play piano, and he started with these basic little things. I wanted to go straight into bach chorales or something, you know, so that I never mastered that. No, it's true. I wanted to do something, and I think that what's interesting is that I was so interested in the stage, I was interested in dance, I was interested in music, I was interested in film, in acting. I mean, I actually went to an acting school and I was in a class with Dustin Hoffman, and we used to say, poor little guy, he's so short and ugly, he'll never make it. Us beautiful, big, gorgeous numbers across and we'll become stars overnight. Who's ever heard of us? Anyway, that was kind of fun. But I realized also that it took tremendous amount of time.

Kaffe Fassett14:41

And as Dustin once said about me, I couldn't act my way out of a wet paper bag, which is absolutely true. But the experience of actually getting up on a stage and getting over those nerves has held me in good stead now to get up and talk to people about color.

Presenter14:55

But when you talk when you talk to to art students these days, I mean, how do you explain to them? I mean, you're you're the kind of classic dropout, aren't you? You're the guy who never stayed at Corporal's.

Kaffe Fassett14:55

When you talk

Kaffe Fassett15:02

You're all the

Kaffe Fassett15:04

I mean, can you imagine what a rebel I am when they get me, they bring me into the schools, and then I say to them, Well, what are you kids doing here? Well, we've been here four years and we want to go on for another five years to another school. And I say, Listen, you're not brain surgeons. Get out of this class and get into life. That will teach you more than anything.

Presenter15:21

Who did you find who taught you about England? Because somewhere along the line in all of this you suddenly were desperately keen about coming here, weren't you?

Kaffe Fassett15:29

Yeah, it's true. I I I met Christopher Isherwood at a dinner party, and this was the most extraordinary man. I mean, he must have been sixty nine or seventy.

Kaffe Fassett15:39

And he had the most alert, curious mind. I mean, he was like a teenager, you know, fascinated about everything, just absolutely turned on to the world, to colour, to anything, and such a funny wit as well. I mean, a very different kind of humour from America. So I rushed out and I bought every book that Christopher Eshwood ever wrote, and that gave me such a taste for England, the feeling of I thought I want to know where he comes from that makes him the man that he is.

Presenter16:01

So you came here what, mid sixties?

Kaffe Fassett16:03

That's right.

Presenter16:04

And how did you make a living, then?

Kaffe Fassett16:07

Well, I drew. I went and I met extraordinary people. I met Jeremy Fry and Cecil Beaton and Sandra Rhodes, all sorts of amazing people. And I went and drew houses and, you know, through context. I sort of went around to amazing English country houses, which I took to like a duck to water. I mean, the kind of frousy old overstuffed furniture and the vines growing in through the windows and the wind blowing through the house and I mean the casualness and the elegance and the warmth and the wit and the I mean all of it. I just lapped up. I just adored it.

Presenter16:43

You like the style?

Kaffe Fassett16:44

I loved it. I loved it. It wasn't pretentious. It wasn't uptight. Yes, I've loved it ever since.

Presenter16:45

I loved it.

Presenter16:50

Next record.

Kaffe Fassett16:51

Well, the next record couldn't be more English if you try. I mean, this is what really burst upon my imagination. It's the Beatles. I didn't understand the Beatles until I came to England. Coming across America on my way to England, I came across my first Beatles song, and I thought it was wonderful. It was a burst of energy. It was called Let Me Hold Your Hand, and I never got over it. I mean, that energy was so terrific. And when I got to England, I understood why they were so significant.

Speaker 417:23

Oh yeah

Speaker 417:25

Tell you something

Speaker 417:27

I think you'll understand Can I say that something?

Speaker 417:34

I wanna hold on

Kaffe Fassett17:44

Aren't they wonderful? I mean, they were just an inspiration to everybody who had a wonderful fantasy, a wonderful image that they wanted to realize in life. And they certainly inspired me to the core.

Presenter17:54

Is that how you would care to inspire your knitters?

Kaffe Fassett17:56

I would very much. I mean, that's that's what I want to bring everybody along on my trip. And I hope that I can be anywhere near just one iota as as inspiring as the Beatles were.

Presenter18:08

Tell me about your trip in the late sixties when you went up to Scotland with with Bill Gibb, I think, the dress designer. And he said, Come and look at this woollen mill in Inverness, and in you went.

Kaffe Fassett18:13

And he said, come and

Presenter18:16

And it all happened.

Kaffe Fassett18:18

That's right. I mean, we went buying this beautiful old ancient tartan, which was something gorgeous to me because it was beautiful, soft, old colors that looked like vegetable dye colours. I mean, they were so marvelous. And I thought, now, where do they get these colors? Who invents them? And then I heard that this extraordinary man that worked in the mill put together these beautiful colors from the landscape colors. And so I went to the back of the mill, and here was the shop filled with these gorgeous yarns. And I just took them in my hands and I thought, has the world gone mad? There's not one single memorable piece of knitting in this entire country. And here is a palette that Rembrandt would have been thrilled with, or Matisse, or anybody. I mean, it's just so subtle, so beautiful. So I grabbed up 20 colors, got on the train on the way back to London, and there was a woman sitting there who was with Billy, and I said, Do you know how to knit? I've just bought some knitting needles and some yarn, and I've got to learn right now. And she taught me how to knit. And that's how it all got started.

Presenter19:17

And it's stocking stitch you do you don't do fancy.

Kaffe Fassett19:20

No. I mean I it's only mixing the colors that really thrills me. And you know, when I finally have done every color in the entire universe and we've exhausted that thing, maybe I'll start playing with fancy stitches, but it doesn't interest me that much. It what interests me is putting those colors together in a very simple way so that I can pass it on to other people as well.

Presenter19:38

So there you were, knitter row, pearl a row. What was the first article you knitted? You gnat?

Kaffe Fassett19:43

Well, it was a rough old cardigan. It was strived to look like a piece of sandstone, had, you know, twenty colors in it, changing constantly. And of course I didn't know how to knit my ends in in those days, so that I had these great shag rugs hanging under my arms. But you know,

Presenter19:58

I take it you know how to knit your ends in now.

Kaffe Fassett20:00

I well I thought

Presenter20:01

This

Kaffe Fassett20:01

This is impossible. You know, I'm not going to sit here with a needle and do all these in. We must simply find a way. So I got someone to show me how to knit my ends in.

Presenter20:10

Now the s the second article you you knitted was a a three quarter length multicoloured jacket, which you put a price tag on of a hundred pounds. It was featured in vogue, and really that was your departure point, wasn't it?

Kaffe Fassett20:22

Yes, it it really was, because that first garment, which was one of David Bailey's better photographs when he actually showed the garment rather than floating at the bottom of a lake.

Kaffe Fassett20:32

Caught the eye of Missonis, which were the greatest knitwear designers in the world then, I think, for machine knitting, and they flew over on the next plane.

Kaffe Fassett20:40

and hired me to design. And what's funny is that I only had a little shoe box full of gnarled up pieces of knitting. They said, Can we see your next collection? And this was it. You know, I mean, I hadn't done anything. And they said, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter. Come out to our factories and play around.

Presenter20:56

I said at the beginning that you find inspiration in art treasures like Roman glass and Byzantine art. How does that work?

Kaffe Fassett21:01

By Santa.

Kaffe Fassett21:03

What I do is take a source that is very rich in color, so it makes you reach for dozens and dozens of colors rather than just a few.

Presenter21:13

And it's not just knitwear, is it? I mean, it's lampshades and

Kaffe Fassett21:16

Oh, yes. I'd got into needle point very quickly after the knitting, and that became a sort of parallel career, where one could be very figurative with wool by stitching it onto canvas, again with very, very simple stitches, but creating just anything you want, from great faces to shells, uh, you know, fruit, vegetables, all of that.

Presenter21:35

I'm dying to hear what the inside of your house looks like, but we'll we'll pause for the fifth record before that.

Kaffe Fassett21:40

Fine.

Kaffe Fassett21:41

Well, I love listening to just swelling, incredible music, particularly female voices, I find very exciting. And I like also timeless music, I mean ethnic music, because a lot of my sources for my garments come from old embroideries from Bulgaria and Yugoslavia and Russia and so forth. And this is music that comes from Bulgaria, and it's just beautiful women singing their hearts out.

Kaffe Fassett22:27

Nasida Pidam Nasida Pidam

Kaffe Fassett22:42

Zamin the control, the men the gold

Speaker 422:55

Chesa mil cordill, chesa mil cordil.

Kaffe Fassett22:56

It's a million dollars.

Presenter22:58

Oh dear. Cheers a new

Presenter23:05

The Ensemble en Coire of the Bulgarian Republic and Vienne au Repa du Soie Rada.

Presenter23:11

You live, I read, Kaife, in an unpretentious house in North London, but I can't believe that it's less than startling inside. What's it like?

Kaffe Fassett23:18

Well, I suppose it's starting I mean some people come in and say, Don't you ever think about living in a different lifestyle? Because I mean it's just incredible. It's a house that I share with my partner, Richard Womersley, who's a weaver and has a huge studio filled with weaving in the bottom of the house and does the gardens, which are beautiful. And I'm upstairs with great big old, funny ripped carpets and bales and bales of yarn. But there's also, you know, millions of inspirations. I mean, china pots are my passion. So I've got these great big china pots all over the place. And also lots of textiles, you know, beautiful Paisley shawls and just good, gorgeous, eye-catching stuff that just turns you on every time you look at it.

Presenter24:01

And occasionally a woman called Streisand might drop by to choose a few sweaters, is that nice?

Kaffe Fassett24:05

She might indeed.

Presenter24:07

And a woman called The Call.

Kaffe Fassett24:08

Yes. Barbara came and she said, Hello, I'm Barbara and came up and went through things. I couldn't believe it. I thought, you know, this is such a legend Uh but she was very excited about the things and she bought quite a few pieces, you know.

Presenter24:20

But there's a certain irony that you must have thought about. I mean, you, a a a colourful Californian from that colourful part of the world, coming here to what some call drab old England, and finding this kind of inspiration for all this vibrant colour.

Kaffe Fassett24:34

Yes, but I what I think is that there's a subtlety of colour here, you know, and and and anybody who thinks that England is drab all only has to go along to gardens. I mean, gardens are the jewel of inspiration. The silvers and bronzes and subtlety and lavenders and so forth in gardens are just so gorgeous. And that has been a tremendous, tremendous inspiration to me, and the old lichen-covered stones. That quality of creating something that's so subtle and so rich and so beautiful and so timeless, that smearing with history is something that constantly attracts me.

Presenter25:06

So would you go as far as to say that you might never have found inspiration if you hadn't come to this country?

Kaffe Fassett25:13

Well, I think that people wouldn't have listened to me in the same way in America. I mean, I met this extraordinary man called Stephen Sherrid, who has the Rowan Yarn Company, and he develops yarns to my specification. Now, no one listened to me at all. I mean, even here, you know, people didn't listen to me, except this little tiny man, in this little tiny place in Yorkshire, you know, these little rolling hills and this little mill. And he started turning out yarns that were so subtle and so beautiful and kept them in his range, which is quite unusual. So that kind of thing makes it irresistible to build up a family of people that one is working with and one respects and one loves to work with. And that's more than anything in the world to me. I would defend that to the death, because that keeps me.

Kaffe Fassett25:55

creating and being excited about what I create.

Presenter25:58

Should we have some more music?

Kaffe Fassett26:00

Well

Kaffe Fassett26:01

Now we go into something that's just pure ecstatic beauty. This is Allegri's Miserari, and it's just there's a beautiful little gorgeous boy's voice in this that is so high and so gorgeous, and I just love to hear it.

Presenter27:07

The Talis Scholars, directed by Peter Phillips, singing Allegri's Miserere.

Presenter27:12

Unlike a lot of experts, Kaif, you're you're not at all dismissive about the amateur. You want people to to create for themselves, don't you?

Kaffe Fassett27:19

Absolutely. The the Crafts Council here were just brilliant in putting a slide show together for me and sending me all around the country to talk to people when I did my first talks. And I began to realize that there was such a response. The things that I just took for total normal you know, they're just off the cuff for me were totally astounding to other people.

Kaffe Fassett27:39

And also, they were saying that they couldn't possibly do what I did. And that was curious to me because all I was doing was the most basic knitting that every idiot that can knit learns how to do. You knit one row, you pearl one row. It's called stocking stitch. It's very, very simple and straightforward. And suddenly, all these experienced old hands were saying to me, I couldn't possibly do what you do. And I say, but why? I'm only using lots of color. That's the only complicating factor.

Presenter28:03

Because it doesn't say so in the pattern. That's right.

Kaffe Fassett28:05

That's right, that's right. What's extraordinary, now when I go and give lectures, half the audience is dripping in the most incredible flights of fancy, wonderful, wonderful colors. They all can do it. But is the back as neat as the front? It doesn't matter. That's what I always say. You know, you make a mess at first. You can get neat later. You can learn all those very fastidious techniques. But if you don't have a voice, who cares if you do neat boredom? You know, we've seen enough of that.

Presenter28:32

Now is your cooking as creative as your handiwork? Are you going to be the perfect homemaker on the island, Cave?

Kaffe Fassett28:34

Yeah.

Kaffe Fassett28:38

Well, I'm very quick and I'm good at leftovers. I I would be inventive on this island. I think I would love, you know, seeing what one could survive on. Sure, I would I would enjoy that very much.

Presenter28:48

And the loneliness?

Presenter28:50

Well

Kaffe Fassett28:51

I'm very gregarious, as you can tell, spouting away here. But I've had an incredibly full life. I mean, I've had fifty-two years absolutely packed with amazing adventures. And it might be nice to sit and start writing about that and making little notes and things and remembering all of the things that I've lived through in my life.

Presenter29:12

You were given not long ago, as I mentioned at the beginning, an exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum. Now how did that come about?

Kaffe Fassett29:19

Well, Princess Michael came to buy a jacket from me, and she got very excited when she came to my parents' shop in California and said This is the most amazing knitting. Where is this man? They said he's in London on your doorstep. So anyway, she came to see me when she got back to London, and she said I'd like to buy a jacket.

Kaffe Fassett29:36

She said, By the way, you know, can I do anything for you? And I said, Well, what's on offer? And she said, Well, I'm a trustee at the Victorian Albert Museum. Would you like an exhibition? I said, Well, I wouldn't mind. You know, that would be sort of fun. And I didn't think it would be that horrendous when I did it. I mean, I didn't realize that it would be such a landmark. But as the time grew closer, they said they had more calls for that exhibition than anything else they had put on there.

Speaker 229:47

And you're not.

Presenter30:01

It it was unashamedly commercial though as well, wasn't it?

Kaffe Fassett30:04

You'll be able to do that. And I got a lot of flack about that. But the thing is, it's education. I mean, people go in and they buy a book or they buy a kit. I don't apologize for that at all. They go home with a box full of yarn, they sit down and they begin to knit. And they might do their first one from my design and then say, gee, that wasn't so difficult. I'll try my own.

Presenter30:05

And I got a lot of

Presenter30:22

But but you you're not a saint. I mean, is this the the money and the fame has obviously become quite important to you? Or is it still the the colour and the creative process?

Presenter30:33

It's

Kaffe Fassett30:35

I starve for years of my life. I mean, for the first four years, I think I made 100 pounds in knitting. I was certainly living on brown rice and off my friends and so forth. It's nice now to be able to travel where I want to and to have the things that I want, but it's not what I do things for. I would be a billionaire if I worked it that way. I would work with very, very simple designs that would go into mass market and so forth. We give people incredibly complicated patterns to work with, and they take a long time to develop.

Presenter31:04

So you remain just a a boring old millionaire.

Presenter31:08

Shall we have number seven?

Kaffe Fassett31:10

Yes, number seven. Well, this is just the most delicious song. It's called I Just Call to Say I Love You, which I'm sure everyone knows.

Speaker 431:19

I just call

Speaker 431:22

Just saying

Speaker 431:24

I love you.

Speaker 431:28

I just go.

Speaker 431:30

To say how much I care.

Speaker 431:36

I just called

Speaker 431:39

To say

Speaker 431:41

I love you.

Speaker 431:45

And I mean it from

Speaker 431:48

Yeah.

Presenter31:48

Uh

Presenter31:50

Stevie Wonder, and I just called to say I love you.

Presenter31:53

And now your exhibition is on its way round the world, Cave, and you, a knitter, have full recognition as an artist. Isn't there still an element of surprise in you at that?

Kaffe Fassett32:03

Well, yes, in a way. I mean, I used to sit on my bed for 20 years, you know, knitting away, thinking this is the most magical, the most thrilling, the most soothing, the most inspiring thing in the world. Why isn't everyone catching on to it? Because the magic of it is that it's so basically simple. And yet, you can pour your heart and soul into every piece. So, in a way, I saw that it could go to great heights and reach many, many people. But I began to despair. I began to realize that it wasn't going to reach anybody because until the first book came out, it reached very few people, and very few people caught on to it. But what's exciting now is that it is in that museum and one museum after another around the world. I mean, so that it's touching the Australians, it's in Scandinavia. We had in Stockholm, I think it was 107,000 people came in six weeks, and it got onto the news there because there were lines out of the museum and down the street, and people kept saying, What is in that museum that's making people crowd in there? And I just think there's such an incredible hunger for things that you can make with your hands, things that any idiot can do. You know, the simplicity of it, and yet

Kaffe Fassett33:08

To be able to reveal one's inner self. It's not like poetry or music, where one has to have a certain talent to reveal it.

Presenter33:16

But isn't it like that? Don't you fear sometimes that you'll run out of inspiration, that your muse will fail you?

Kaffe Fassett33:23

Boy, not at all. Every design you do gives birth to five, six, seven, eight, twelve designs. You know, you're just sitting there thinking, Oh, my God, I've got to do that one, I've got to do that one It's a total turn on from beginning to end. I would never, never lose inspiration in knitting.

Presenter33:36

And which here's a good desert island question which of all the things you've ever made, you've ever designed, you've ever created, you've ever knitted, is your favourite?

Kaffe Fassett33:44

I think probably some of the big tapestries that I've done one of the ones I did with huge great big china pots that's traveling the world now in this exhibition is one that is my favorite probably.

Presenter33:56

In a moment it's your favourite piece of music, but first it's the last one that you'd like to take with you.

Kaffe Fassett34:00

Right.

Kaffe Fassett34:01

Well, my last one is just pure, unadulterated beauty. It's soaring to the heights, and it's something that I first heard here in England, and I associate with extraordinary experience of England, too. Uh it's Monteverdi's Vespas.

Presenter35:01

Part of Monte Ve's Vespers with the Monte Ve Choir and Orchestra conducted by John Elliott Gardner.

Presenter35:07

So Kafe, your favourite of those eight records.

Kaffe Fassett35:10

Well, my favorite is the allegri, just that beautiful boy's voice.

Presenter35:15

And a book you have the complete works of Shakespeare, and you have the Bible already waiting for you sitting on the beach.

Presenter35:21

What will you have as well?

Kaffe Fassett35:23

Well, I think I'd like something that has beautiful little bits that just remind me of lots of different worlds and are just choice readings, and that's Reflections by Herman Hess, just all of his very wise sayings.

Presenter35:37

And a luxury what can we supply you with?

Kaffe Fassett35:40

I think a diary and can I have a little box of paint and a pen so that I can I can paint and write.

Kaffe Fassett35:48

Would be nice.

Presenter35:49

Well, I think I'd have to think hard about the paints, but a diary and a pen anyway. And Kay Fassett, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your Desert Island discs.

Kaffe Fassett35:57

Thank you, Sue, it was great fun.

Speaker 236:07

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.