ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

Help! They are gone !

Who took the Haarlem Balls?

Those elegant balls in the most gorgeous town square (Grote Markt) we have been in. Those gorgeous balls that were used to sit on and talk to your buddies in the summer.

Those elegant balls on an elegant curve delineating the road from the square.

Those balls that were so right in a town square of such age, beauty and elegance. No other shape, or style of divider could ever do in that space.

And then of course there are the Ball Warmers themselves, so far none of the measured balls in Maastricht or the loosely measured balls in California match the size of these Haarlem Balls.

So my knitting pattern suggestion will never have another use.

The snow ball and the formal ball gown – will not have a place where they can be proudly displayed.

Why oh why has this happened?????

Is it because I cannot read sufficient Dutch to have known they were to be removed?

Or is it because the newspapers that I can manage to read some of, were not delivered?

I could have installed the Ball Warmers – even for a brief time. These Ball warmers will never be seen in all their glory. People using the square will not be able to smile at the silliness, or the surprise, or the delight of great concrete balls with covers; knitted art designer covers.

Right now I am so shattered, and as I didn’t take my camera with me today – I do not have a photograph of the square without balls.

I will add photos of the square without the balls later maybe, when I have the strength to return. Maybe, just maybe, they will be put back before I can return there.

And this will just have been a nightmare.

So from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I see that

A sphere (from Greek σφαῖρα—sphaira, “globe, ball”) is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space, such as the shape of a round ball. Like a circle in three dimensions, a perfect sphere is completely symmetrical around its center, with all points on the surface lying the same distance from the center point. This distance is known as the radius of the sphere. The maximum straight distance through the sphere is known as the diameter of the sphere. It passes through the center and is thus twice the radius.

In higher mathematics, a careful distinction is made between the sphere (a two-dimensional spherical surface embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space) and the ball (the three-dimensional shape consisting of a sphere and its interior). See the Wikipedia article here

So there we have it

But HOW to knit this spherical object – that is the question?

You need to know the size of your sphere – ball. Mine is 150cm plus a handspan (my handspan).

I began with 8 stitches, increased to 320 stitches by increasing 8 times on every 4th round (more or less). I knitted this on a circular needle and circularly – entirely appropriate for a circular object.

I am using 8 ply or double knit yarn on 4mm needles. The length from the top point to 320 stitches should be around 80cm. I have knitted the last of the top section of about 10 cm in k1p1 rib to help the cover to cling well. It is not a good look to have a baggy saggy ball warmer. There is a bit of give and take – because I didn’t knit this first half with only 8 ply (DK) yarns – I included mohair and faux fur fibres and some cotton yarns. So I needed to measure the piece for length as I knitted and adjust the increases and I will have to do the same when I do the decreases. SO this is not a formal pattern – this is a “suck it and see” piece of knitting.

Decreasing will be the increasing process in reverse – except that I will end up with around 32 stitches because the bottom half doesn’t present the full sphere to you as it is set in concrete. This half will still be created on a circular needle, but is not longer knitted circularly otherwise it will not fit over the ball. So back and forth from the centre down (more or less). I will knit the bottom half in garter stitch to assist it to join more easily – it is awkward to join the ball warmer together as I found with the first Haarlem Ball Warmer. I think I will use velcroe on this one – so that it can be joined more easily and removed more easily. It could then live another day as something else maybe.

There are lots of balls to alter very temporarily here in Haarlem, and also in Maastricht, so maybe they are everywhere in the Netherlands.

What about a countrywide exhibition of altered environments – “The Town Spheres” exhibition. Calling all knitters, crocheters, textile artists, patchworkers, basket weavers, embroiderers, felters and all others I have not mentioned as yet – to take up their needles and threads, yarns, and looms, and just do this.

You guessed it – it started to snow at about 9pm, I had completed the increases I had planned, so we considered – should we, or should we not go out and check the knitting against the ball?

Snowing – white knitted ball cover – Cold ball

No choice really – wrapped up warm, hid the ball cover in my bag and went to the Grote Markt (Town Square). It is Friday night, lots of people about, some hardy tourists, and the bars are quite full. Rising panic – What would happen this time? Are they waiting for us? Does everyone know? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?

nah

I lifted the white knit a little dubiously out of my bag (It suddenly seemed like a beacon and very heavy). I had to be calm and behave as though this is just normal – checking knitting against a large stark, solid, and grey stone ball in the middle of Haarlem, in the middle of the night. (well about 10pm), I laid it on the ball – and yes for all you knitters out there, I have increased the right number of stitches – so can now proceed with my hand span of straight ribbed knitting before decreasing. I love my hands, they measure and knit quite well. For this ball warmer I used Yarn Over increases and hoped to see the strong grey solid stone through the holes but it was dark of course so I have no idea as yet whether it will show / shine through the white/creamy/soft/fluffy knitting.

Unfortunately we tried the camera on a night scene setting – so the photos are rubbish.

So I guess we will have to do it again.

Or we will just install it

The sun was shining, the sky blue, the ground white, the trees black with white snow still clutching to the branches and down the sides of the trunk – so I went out and it was freezing, freezing, freezing cold -5.2c, at about 3pm. But I still went as I had decided to measure a Haarlem Ball so that we do not have take the knitting to the ball until it is time to install it.

This is because it was so very cold every night we took the knitting to the ball, and our hands froze, and we had to fortify ourselves with the local gluhwein (mulled wine), which you will appreciate was tough. I also need to test my ability to create a knitting pattern to fit a large ball. I might have to sneak it there just once so that at install time it will definitely be okay.

I arrived at the row of balls – took out the tape measure, hunkered down, wrapped it around – and a 1.5cm tape measure is too short to measure a Haarlem Ball. So scientifically speaking – the ball circumference is 150cm plus 1 hand span and I will work to that.

I have to revise down the temperature on the night we installed the original Haarlem Ball Cover, knowing what the temperature was today when I went out. On install night it must have been at least -5, plus wind chill.

Knit Graffiti – me – Can I really do that?

Well it seems that I can. I was wandering around town as you do, with my best beloved last Sunday which was a freezing, bitter, bleak and cold day after installing the Tree Scarf and saw all the magnificent balls lining the side of the Grote Markt (the big town square) of Haarlem.

We went home and I rummaged and found yarns and started to knit a huge Ball Warmer. We have visited the balls of Haarlem in the dark cold evenings this week to check sizing as you can see from the photos. I went once during the day – that was take 1 – but there is no photo for take 1 as I couldn’t balance my bag, the camera and hold the piece over the ball by myself. So the rest was done under the cover of darkness just so that Best Beloved could assist the project. Under cover of darkness for you southern hemisphere folk – darkness now starts at around 5pm and Best Beloved isn’t home generally until around 6pm.

It is a very big ball.

Then on Wednesday evening – we went to install said Ball Warmer.

Thursday morning it was gone.

Can you believe that – we do know that a young couple took a photo while we were installing the warmer and maybe they have a really good picture of this piece of graffiti – which did no harm, didn’t damage anything and did warm a frozen Haarlem Ball however briefly.

is the title of a new book on art knit graffiti from Magda Sayeg of KnittaPlease – to be published I believe in 2010. The very idea of this book is what got me so excited and started me viewing my environment with the thought of how could I artistically enhance it however temporarily. And as I have discovered the life of knit art graffiti can be very short indeed.

Now I would never have considered any form of graffiti as being something that I could or would want to do. BUT the adrenlin buzz as far as a buzz of adrenlin can move an older person or two is really exciting. The carrying out of the installation – even planning to check the sizing was just a bit stressful.

You can see from the photo that we had measured the knitting in a very scientific way. About 6 inches or 15cm to go before beginning the decreases.

On the day when we planned to install our graffiti – it was still daylight – just. We walked to the Grote Markt (town square) with the finished piece, threaded needle ready, scissors in the pocket (foldup ones that cannot dig into your side and cut you and bleed over your art piece). We had already chosen our ball – it was to be number 13 in the beautiful line of 25. When we arrived at the spot another ball beckoned so that became “the ball”. And then the fun started. The blood pressure went up, would people stop us, would they look at us, would they photograph us, would they wrestle us to the ground, would they call the p….?

Nothing happened – it was as normal an activity as any other – it seems. There was just no reaction.

The final step in this process – the wearing of graffiti knitted art by a Frozen Haarlem Ball.

BUT I had made a fundamental error – that is when I was at the Cast Off row on the knitting – where I had used a much much much bigger needle to cast off – it was still toooooo ttttiiiiggghht to get over the ball.

Panic *&(&^%%

Then I did what no knitter would ever do – I snipped the cast off edge in a number of places – see if we could ease (stretch) the knitted art graffiti (hoody maybe) over the ball.

Nope

So we took it off – and went to a local cafe / bar to recover and to have a gluhwein, warm up and work out what to do now. Once the hands and body were warm again – I thought HHmmmm – I had needle, yarn and scissors. So I sat in the bar with my gluhwein – and I unpicked the cast off edge and caught each stitch with the yarn. I stretched it as far as the knitting could stretch and sewed in the end of the yarn.

Back to the Ball

This time it went over – it was a tight fit – but it was always the intention that this ball cover would fit well – and it did. But it was even colder by then – maybe -2 or -3 with a real feel of my fingers are going to get frostbite and fall off and a fear that I will never be able to knit again.

And the ball was really really icy cold – and I still needed to sew the join from the bottom to the middle section. I am too old to hunker down and sew – besides the ground was icy cold as well and covered with snow – the only way was to lie over the ball and stitch from the bottom up. But my hands were so frozen that I could not manipulate the needle and thread and it was impossible to do it with big gloves on.

Common sense prevailed and we left the seam unstitched.

Next morning I went back to maybe stitch the seam, if I had the courage, and there the ball was without its beautiful designer coat.

Another is on the way