ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

Shadow Knitting is something I have often thought about working with but had never quite got to trying it out. I didn’t want to create pictures as such, but would like to see how I could explore its use as an art form.

I had the opportunity to put forward a proposal for an art piece to the International Textile Exhibition being held in the Netherlands in 2010. The theme is “Sporen” or “Tracks” – I have taken the view that what we will leave behind will be plastic, lots of plastic; or the current hotspot, The Carbon Footprint. They didn’t get excited about the piece I created but it was an interesting experiment with shadow knitting and I am going to continue working with it. I can see such creative and artistic opportunities.

On the way to my “Carbon Footprint” art piece I created several small wall hangings to fit into the 20″ by 20″ frame as required for the exhibition. The first was a knitted scene – which I then felted. I like it well enough, but not enough to put it forward. Yes I could have embellished it and I will probably do that sometime.

My next piece was to include plastic, as my view of the world is that we will all finally be buried under a mountain of plastic. I roughly cut various plastic bags into strips, nothing too tidy as plastic is not tidy. I also visited a very dim “rabbit warren” of a junk shop here in Haarlem and came out with many odd plastic things – stuff that had been created as advertising gimmicks – key rings, swizzle sticks, some toy bits etc which I was going to include in my knitted Everest. It is pure rubbish for which I paid an exorbitant amount of money. It was stuff that should never have been created and had been doomed to linger on the very dusty shelves of a large, dim, untidy, disorganised junk shop until the crazy knitter rolled in. Of course if I had used it – maybe I would have had to go back and find some more. My hands were rather blackish and grubby when I emerged and it was not that good for my lungs either. I did knit my 20″ by 20″ Everest – of plastic using the shadow knitting technique. I like it, but it didn’t quite demonstrate what I had hoped and time was running out – and by then my best beloved had suggested “The Carbon Footprint”. I think Everest is the beginnings of a much larger piece, 20″ by 20″ was too small for my Everest.

I purchased a digitally restored eBook which included the pattern for a crocheted bathmat with a chart to embroider a footprint on the crocheted bathmat. This pattern was originally published by The American Thread Company, Star Rug Book No. 93, in 1952.

I redesigned the chart for a knitted foot print after I had tried and failed with the chart as it was. The re-engineered footprint was then knitted in black mohair, with the background of a natural coloured varigated sock yarn and finished with a black crochet edge. It was not deemed suitable for the exhibition BUT it has set me off in a new direction and I had thought I would only ever create with many, many colours and fibres and that I would use the intarsia method of knitting till I slip this mortal coil. Not so – I am learning so many more knitting techniques here in the Netherlands.

I think of that and wonder why that could be and the only conclusion I can come to is that in New Zealand there are many things happening around me and I am easily led from my work.

Here there is only me, this little house, my yarn, my best beloved is at work, I shop for groceries, walk the canals, watch the birds, ride my bike (not alone you understand – we go out on the bikes together), out on the polders and to the North sea, visit museums and galleries – there is really nothing to interfere with the creative process – so I am more creative.

I don’t know.

Shadow knitting – a technique of knitting alternating rows of dark and light yarn to produce a subtle patterning that appears and disappears depending on the angle from which it is viewed. The shadow knitting queen is Vivian Hoxbro.