When I was about eleven I was given a Kaffe Fassett knitting kit for a stripey batwing sweater. I hadn’t taken to knitting much before this, but the promise of that stipey confection made me stitch and stitch until it was finished.

Scroll down to a lifelong love affair with everything Kaffe Fassett. His textiles for quilting are heart-stopping…the way he uses colour is always gorgeous, crazy and seemingly SLAPDASH (even though it probably isn’t)…I like this…a LOT.

…Also, I think he’s about the handsomest man in the whole wide world apart from Jeff Bridges. Kind, laughing eyes…always does it for me….

…so my heart pounded like a crazed fan when I spied him in a gloriously kitted-out hut at RHS Chelsea. I was crazed enough to accost a passing photographer and make her snap us…

The hut was painted a delicious pink…a kind of unidentifiable pink. He told me it was his version of ‘dried blood’. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen dried blood so pretty, but there we are.

Here he is again….with bunting.

Anyhow, I wished immediately that my own hut was painted that colour, and then I remembered that I still had to paint my daughter’s wendy house. Her favourite colour is pink (it changed from orange to pink a while ago)…I think it is somehow unavoidable this, because I have taken great pains (well, SOME pains) to bring her up to favour green or blue, or yellow…it hasn’t worked. And seeing Kaffe’s hut kind of sanctioned the whole pink thing.

As you can see, I couldn’t quite get Kaffe’s pink (I had a grand total of two hours to buy the paint and do the deed, so no mixing or agonising allowed)

But I DO love it so…. and it’s echoing my cistus and my roses, and making them sing even more, if that were possible…

The small person is rather taken with it too…