Sew it with flowers!

World renowned needlepoint guru and textile designer Kaffe Fassett on why English gardens inspire him

As a child growing up on the west coast of America, Kaffe Fassett used to run through fields of orange poppies. ‘There were great sheets of them where we lived, just a huge expanse of these wonderful silky flowers,’ he remembers. ‘Although I took them for granted, as you do when you’re a child, I think my fascination with colour, and with flowers, dates back to those fields of poppies.’

Kaffe – his name rhymes with ‘safe’ – arrived in London from the States in 1964, intending to stay for three months, but never left. Originally a painter, he’s now one of the world’s best-known textile designers and is particularly admired for his fearless way with colour.

He’s the first living textile artist to have had a one-man show at London’s Victoria & Albert Museum and his clothes have been featured in Vogue, but he’s best known for his magnificent quilts and fabrics, and for the tapestry kits that made needlepoint fashionable again. Now 78, Kaffe still brims with creative energy and is busier than ever: he recently launched Achillea, his own range of floral- based toiletries, with vibrant packaging which he designed, and has just written a new book, Kaffe Fassett’s Bold Blooms, celebrating the central role of flowers in his work.

‘Colour is the starting point for my work, but flowers are a recurring theme in everything I do,’ he says. When he first came to Britain ‘as a brash young American’ and began to visit gardens, Kaffe was overwhelmed by what he saw. ‘When I’m in a beautiful garden, all my senses awaken,’ he says. ‘In a really good garden so many aspects come into play, from the structure to the planting, that you can’t help but be inspired by it and want to capture it in some way.’

His colourful garden in nor th London is filled with plant s. ‘ I’m par ticularly fond of the extroverts of the floral world: dramatic, ful l- blown blooms that aren’t shy, that stand out with pizzazz, that sing opera not lullabies – things like spiky dahlias, or voluptuous peonies and roses, or cheerful pansies.’ He also likes to use plenty of lush, leafy foliage in his garden. ‘ If they’re used right, leaves can be magical and theatrical,’ he says.

Kaffe’s needlework and quilting projects often feature these same flowers, along with tulips, chrysanthemums, poppies, sunf lowers and even brassicas. Surprisingly, he finds seed packets a great source of inspiration. ‘I just love them!’ he laughs. ‘ I pin them up on a board, moving them around to get different combi- Kaffe Fassett (above) and Great Dixter (top). Above right: Kaffe’s own garden nations. It’s a great way to get ideas for quilt patterns.’

Another source of inspiration is the late Christopher Lloyd’s garden at Great Dixter in Sussex. ‘It’s my favourite English garden,’ he says. ‘I love the way Christopher used outrageously bright colour combinations that shocked many traditional gardeners – reds, purples, pinks and a dash of brilliant orange. Great Dixter also has these towering yew hedges and changes of level – it’s a garden that you can just lose yourself in.’

Although Kaffe is modest about his gardening skills – ‘compared to most English people, I’m not a proper gardener’ – in 1998 he was asked to design a garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. It featured mosaic columns, a water fea- ture and jewel-like tones of bronze, ochre, maroon, deep blue and black. The bold design won him a gold medal. Autumn is his favourite time of year, as he loves the vibrant colours and ornate shapes of dahlias and chrysanthemums. Yet even in the depths of winter, when flowers are few and far between, Kaffe finds plenty of colour to inspire him. ‘I love going for a walk on cold, grey days, seeing the trees outlined against the sky, and suddenly spotting someone wearing a yellow hat or some red gloves, and the colour just pops out at you and lifts your spirits,’ he says. ‘There’s beauty wherever you look.’

Kaffe’s Achillea range of toiletries is available from kaffefassettfragrance.com. Kaffe Fassett’s Bold Blooms (Abrams Books, £21.99) is out now.