ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

I do have a very large stash of yarns some of which is in New Zealand – and I am going back to New Zealand for a holiday – and to create a piece for the Alpaca Expo 2009 and maybe to begin my piece for WoolOn at the the Alexandra Blossom Festival.

Each piece I create is unique – that is even if the style is repeatable – the way I use the yarns within any piece is not. I work from an overview idea maybe of colours, or fibres or an idea or picture that arrives as I am knitting. I may begin with a concept which alters as I go as the yarns can speak for themselves.

These two events have caused me to pause and focus on the design process prior to picking up the needles as the yarns required are New Zealand Alpaca and New Zealand wool. I am focusing on the Fashion Parade for the Alpaca piece and maybe the Special Occasion section for the WoolOn creative Fashion event.

I am looking for the New Zealand Alpaca yarn online and have sufficient New Zealand wool to begin my WoolOn piece here in the Netherlands before I leave and complete it on my return.

I am leaving the summer of the Netherlands for the cold damp miserable winter in New Zealand – the bonus is that I am also going to spend a great deal of time with my wonderful daughter and that special grandson of mine.

I have struggled with my creations since I arrived in the Netherlands and apart from the lack of a huge range of yarns I have not had a “body” to test shapes and flow of any of the pieces I have been working on. In New Zealand I had access to a torso as well as my daughter who has been a very patient model all her life.

Today I have fixed that – I purchased not one but two torso’s from a 2nd hand clothing shop which is closing down here in Haarlem.

One – all black with minimal facial features and no arm sections – and the headless wonder but with the upper arms. The fun cape on my gorgeous black girl is definitely a work in progress, but the beret is completed and lovely. It is knitted in Sean Sheep “Cassowary” in colour truffle with brown double knit 100% wool edge.

I have been working in a very foreign way for me – here in the Netherlands.

My design process is usually more or less as outlined below.

I play with my yarns – and that includes touching it and smelling it, and moving it from one pile to another to see which colours sing for me and then I decide what I could make with the resulting group of yarns. There have been many times when I have had a large sheet on the floor covered in piles of yarn which I may “play” with for some weeks before I begin to knit. I have a patient family, thank goodness.

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