ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

There is a project that makes my mind boggle at the sheer time, dedication and mastery of the craft that will be required to create it?

You already know that generally I do not knit fair isle. I have created a sweet little pinafore with a row of hearts – which were created with yarns stranded across the back – a very simple Fair Isle. My boats on little boys sweaters were done with intarsia. When I had a knitting machine eons ago – I did manage to create pieces with Fair isle designs.

You also know that I attended a workshop in Amsterdam with Danish knit designer and artist Christel Seyfarth

Christel lives and works on the Danish island of Fano. The changing tides, the special light and the sky are all important source of inspiration for her special and unique knit designs. She is fascinated by traditional clothes and takes the old patterns and designs and translates them into modern creations and her creations are in Fair Isle. She showed us at that workshop in Amsterdam that although it looks complex it is in fact simple fair isle. Her work is amazing in its construction, colour use and the finishing is just superb.

I was gobsmacked on that day and I still think of it with a great deal of pleasure – for all sorts of reasons. We both love the sea and light, our environments, colours, and yarns. There is pleasure in all of those things – but I simply cannot imagine myself with the skills and patience and the dedication to create one of her truely amazing pieces and I am terrified of steeks. Piffle you say! No it is not piffle.

It is not the Fair Isle, that seems to be as easy as Christel has said. It is not the colour – I am in love with colour. The pieces are made in rectangles and triangles – easy. It is the techniques including the steeks, and the dramatic finishing of each piece.

Do I have the patience, the skills, the confidence? I don’t actually know.

So my challenge is to knit a piece designed by Christel Seyfarth. On my “to do” list for me, that is the finished piece which will be created by me will also be for me. It will have to wait until we have settled back in New Zealand. So the winter of 2012 on New Zealand – that will be July to September 2012 – my big project will be a Christel Seyfarth design. It will include steeks – which as I have said already, quite frankly terrify me.

I am no longer going to be a scaredy cat regarding steeks. So there.

I have been asked about a better photo of the sweater – sadly it was created way back in 1978 or 1979 and the photograph on the post was scanned into my computer a few years ago. The original photo is in New Zealand “somewhere” and I am living in the Netherlands so a better scan is not possible right now.

It is possible that there are other photos and maybe I will recreate the sweater as it was quite lovely and a fairly simple intarsia design. It would be reasonably easy to chart for someone else to recreate as well. It will not be high on my “To Do” list though as we are working hard on planning our relocation to New Zealand.

This week I have managed to have new passport photos taken, and I do have to go to The Hague to submit my application to the Danish consulate there in person – so I will do that soon. My passport will expire in July and we leave the Netherlands in the first week of August.

I have made arrangements with several relocation companies and to come and cost the removal of our belongings to New Zealand and I have a a couple of days in Maastricht as Best Beloved will be working there – it will be lovely to be there in the Spring.

In this next week I shall be sorting out stuff that we will not take home, and be placing them to one side so they are not included in the costings to get our stuff home. These will go to de Schalm later for them to onsell. De Schalm is a local “not for profit” business. Their function is to offer opportunity for unemployed people to learn skills that may assist them into work. The mainly youngsters learn to handle cash, take care of the shop, create pieces to sell either sewing, woodwork, bike repair, all sorts of practical skills. We have purchased odd chairs, dining room table etc from there to set ourselves with bits we didn’t bring from New Zealand.

I will have a very busy week.

Will I also knit in this next week? Yes, I will be working on my two knitted houses for the Stephanie Rhode installation and delivering those to her in the next couple of weeks.

Anything else – well maybe, we’ll see.

This weekend, WELL we had planned to go to Nieuwegein to the Breidag and Haakdag: the hottest event of the Netherlands! . There seems to be no train from Haarlem to Amsterdam where we can head to Utrecht and then to Nieuwegein and it has become a rather convoluted journey with several buses, trains, and even a tram. It would take us about 2 hours from here in Haarlem. And that Best Beloved has a heavy cold and has now pulled out of this days planned travel. We had wanted to take our bikes, but because there is no train from here to make connections from Amsterdam and we cannot take bikes on the bus and it is too far for us to ride yet, especially in the time we have today – we have decided not to go.

Such a pity as I had hoped to meet with Miriam Tegels, and maybe @PickledTreats would also have been there.

So I will wander in Haarlem instead – it is a great place to wander.

Best Beloved will rest.

Day Five: 1st April. And now for something completely different – a bit of our European journey

And why we are going home – our very special grand baby – who will be 8 years old this year. The baby shawl was knitted in garter stitch in a large square. The edge was crocheted with trebles and shells. So it is still nearly a knitting and crocheting blog post.