Pine Cone Hill launches new line

By Staff -- Home Textiles Today, 2/2/2004 12:00:00 AM

PITTSFIELD, MASS. —

High-end bedding and accessories supplier, Pine Cone Hill, has launched a new line of products for the home with artist Kaffe Fassett.

The vibrant new collection of quilts, sheets, rugs, micro-hooked pillows, tabletop and sleepwear — Kaffe Fassett for Pine Cone Hill — will begin shipping in mid-May.

The collection, which has taken shape since mid-October, encompasses four quilt patterns with complementary bedding, four rug designs, four pillows, table linens, and mix-and-match ceramic tabletop.

The new bedding designs are Crazy Squares Quilt, Willow Lily Quilt, Bed of Roses Quilt and Watercolor Floral Quilt. Crazy Squares consists of a bright pattern of squares laid over a bold floral in pink, yellow, orange and turquoise; it is backed with stripes layered over the same floral profusion.

Watercolor Floral is a multi-floral pattern in softer pastels that reverses to a multi-colored stripe adapted from a watercolor sketch by Fassett.

Pine Cone Hill founder Annie Selke added that, in the future, the knitted, crocheted aspect of the collection will be more pronounced. She described her collaboration with Fassett as "a marriage of great craft and artistry with technology. I think the line could go anywhere from here … there could be more knit work, fabrics, rugs, you name it."

Artist Kaffe Fassett said, "One of things I find most exciting about this collaboration is that Pine Cone Hill acts pretty quickly on the ideas I throw at them. Another interesting aspect is going to a place like China or India and realizing what they can do well and running with it."

The Kaffe Fassett collection is produced by Pine Cone Hill for bedding, Potluck Studios for tabletop and The Dash & Albert Rug Company for accent rugs. Together, the firms are known as the Annie Selke Companies. The group sells to a network of 3,000 independent boutiques, furniture stores and Neiman Marcus, its only department store client.

Fassett has authored books on color, design and knitting, providing ideas for using color and pattern to energize interiors. He has contributed to the revival of handcrafts such as quilting, knitting, needlepoint and rug hooking.