ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

I do not know the name of the model wearing my Great New Zealand Cloak – but it was a nice surprise to find this photograph today. I had followed an advertisement for the upcoming Italian “Vogue Knitting Italia 2010″ tour and explored and found this photograph from the 2007 tour which came to New Zealand & Australia. That tour was also hosted by Carla Scott and Nicky Epstein, and we were all delighted to meet them.

Vogue Knitter Tour member wearing The Great New Zealand Cloak

I wonder what we will do next year – to brighten up our winter evenings. It has been necessary in this cold winter with short daylight hours to create something which is new and exciting, to stimulate us, and maybe challenge and also delight others. The Ball Warmers have done that for us, and the tree and scarf was what started it all off, after that fateful email that I received about knit art Graffiti.

Next winter, well I don’t know what we will do. But now we must disrobe the tree and allow nature to create its own wonder with the birds, bees, leaves, grass, flowers, sunshine and the people in the parks. The scarf is no longer required to brighten a winter day.

Could this piece about the tree with a designer scarf have belonged here on Connielene instead of on Our Story here in the Netherlands. I don’t know – so you could check the story by following the link.

For some of the story in photographs see these from Flickr.

Enjoy

We will disrobe the tree today.

I did go into Haarlem Grote Markt (Town Square) last night – just in case the balls were back. It was absolutely freezing cold and there was a different energy than on Tuesday when the Olympians came home.

See the Town Square as I saw it on Tuesday When the Olympians came home

It had been suggested that the magnificant balls of Haarlem had been removed to enable them to set up for the Olympian homecoming party – Sadly those wonderful balls are not back.

They are doing road works next to where the balls were, so maybe, just maybe they will be back when the work is completed.

So that is the news so far – NO Magnificant Balls in Haarlem – I will keep you posted.

The Balls in Wellington City, New Zealand have turned out to be beautiful ball shaped lights – so that is not a good option for covering with a creative textile art piece. Great balls of fire might follow.

We have found natural balls, the Moeraki Boulders on the coast about 40K’s from Dunedin, in New Zealand. We are hoping to find man made spherical objects even further south in Invercargill or on Stewart Island.

Yesterday I went to Maastricht with my white, large, ball cover – to test it against one of the many balls in Maastricht. Now I had not seen these balls previously, I didn’t know the size, I didn’t know how public the space was, and I didn’t know just how cold it would be.

When I left home in Haarlem at about 7am, the temperature was -5.1, and that is cold and everything was very white. The flurry of snow we expected had covered everything with white icing. Not thick icing, but just enough for that beautiful look.

Now my ball cover and I have not met much in the last week or so, well, not on a regular basis, and it was still unfinished. But my partner in these activities, my best beloved was to be in Maastricht on business and we arranged to meet after one of his meetings – so he could help with the plan. Which meant I had to knit on the train – and I think I’ll tell about that in another post, because that was an experience.

Now Best Beloved had discovered the balls of Maastricht, well he had eventually noticed the balls on one of his many trips there, as you may remember there has been lots of ball talk in our house of recent times. So the balls drifted to the surface one day and he remembered to tell me there are many such balls in Maastricht and Maastricht is very very cold. Have a look here for a story about a very cold Maastricht

As I walked along the road to our rendevous point – it began to snow and it was frightfully cold.

Snowing, a grey ball being disguised as a snow ball

We met, quickly chose a ball, took off our gloves in readiness, BB to take a photo or a video and me to cover the ball. Just picture it, two over 60’s disguised by many layers of clothing, acting oddly by a long row of very cold balls and without the comfort of darkness.

The spot was at a roundabout – and in the centre of the roundabout is a forest of stars. The stars sit on top of poles of various lengths – the lower ones are easily within reach of a tall person and they are all white and those stars turn on the top of the poles with the breeze. Couldn’t they be a coloured forest of stars?

I digress – In the freezing cold we managed one photo, a video with really bad conversation on it – “look at my cold hands, the cover is too big, it fits better because it goes over easier, but that means it is too big. Are you really recording, don’t you have to have your finger pressing the button, My hands are frozen, look at my hands”.

And then we saw the other balls – further in – and they are big like my Haarlem balls.

No, we didn’t do it. It was just so cold that we did not have the courage or strength to take the ball warmer and try to put it onto one of the bigger balls.

We went had lunch at a place called Ipanema instead. The food was great, coffee okay, the place was warm, lovely and warm – but there was nothing Ipanema’ish about it.

I am reorganising the galleries and I hope that if you like free form intarsia, and some more formal intarsia that you will enjoy viewing this gallery.

 

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.

I have begun my new ball covers – well I have begun sorting my yarns, checking for the various textures, thickness of the yarn, deciding if 2 or 3 threads are required to knit the same tension as other yarns and so on.

Did you know there are hundreds of white and hundreds of black. I don’t have hundreds of each (I wish I did) – but I am matching yarns – short leftover lengths and assessing them against each other and seeing if any are the same colour and type. Trouble is that I have not labelled these pieces – so have to look at each one, and decide – so that when I knit them up – I will not knit 2 yarns the same, next to each other.

As one of these ball covers will be white, I want the many whites to show as different whites up close – although the overall effect will be white. I expect the same with the black yarns.

The end view I hope will be that nothing is very clear, that is nothing is simply black or white.

You might ask – why don’t I label these short lengths of yarn – the answer of course is that there are too many. Usually when I knit with many yarns, I also knit with many colours, so I have never got into the habit of labelling my leftovers. I have never knitted with many whites or with many blacks in one piece.

I still have to measure the ball so that we do not have to go out in the freezing cold each eveningto check the progress and sizing of the knitting as we did with the first one.

It is -4c right now, the sun is shinning and there is no or little wind so no excuses – must go measure.

The knitted scarf is still on the tree.

The knitted ball cover for “The Frozen Ball of Haarlem” seems to be lost for ever. I have bought a small ball and will knit a replica cover for it – just so I do not forget.

Is this really Knit Graffiti it is quite a lot of fun, a bit challenging, and here in the Netherlands it is freezing

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.

Checking the size

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.

Dressed Ball but no closure

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

Danish born, brought up in New Zealand and have been living in the Netherlands since Sept. 2008 because Best Beloved has work here at present.

I have been knitting since the mid 1950’s and began designing my own pieces in my early 20’s. These early designs related to the yarns I could purchase very cheaply from bargain bins and at end of the season – so there was not a big range to choose from for any piece. But buying yarns this way meant I became quite innovative in my colour and yarn use and very early discovered that the required yarn for any pattern is simply to force one to buy that specific yarn and is so absolutely untrue.

Designing and crafting has always been part of my life and I have created pieces using various skills including embroidery, basket weaving, marbling, tie dying fabrics, crocheting, knitting etc.

I love cooking and had an experience which will never be forgotten as a young teenager of 15/16 where I was one of 12 finalists in “Cook of the Year” a New Zealand recipe and cooking competition. This meant I had to be part of a bakeoff – where I cooked my own recipe (the one that I had put forward which placed me in the finals) and a recipe of one of the other finalists. Pretty scary as a young person and of course I drew the recipe of the ultimate winner to be created along with my own recipe.

My “real work” work from the end of the 1970’s was in library systems – first helping put the first library catalogue onto a computer system (data entry, form filling), then working with the Dynix Library System first at Auckland Public Library, then with Dynix itself as a library Support person eventually becoming Manager of Dynix New Zealand. In early 2000 I became the Library Systems Manager at Whangarei District Library where my most interesting project was establishing a Mobile Library Service for the Whangarei District – from buying and outfitting the bus, working out bus routes, and sorting out the technology as well as managing the library system itself.

Now I can barely manage my own computer – especially in this last 18 months with my computer in storage for the first 6 months and using Best Beloved’s work laptop when it was available. Once we were established here with our stuff in a house we did get mine out of storage and I lived and worked with blue screens and crashes for nearly 8 months. I have now replaced it and I do not like my very first laptop, and I hate office 2007 and I hate Vista so far.

I have created / designed many many more pieces than I now can remember and they have gone to many places in the world – from New Zealand to Denmark and England. Now that I have a digital camera – I still manage to complete pieces and not photograph them – but I really do try to photograph everything I create.

Craft / Art Experience:

1973/74 – Cook Street Market – Auckland. I designed and created knit and crochet garments for babies & children, hats & waistcoats of many colours for adults. One passion was multi coloured shawls which I knitted and crocheted. I did also create garments after tie dying the fabrics. I am a lousy sewer but did create hippy style shirts to sell at the market as well. I made many natural cane baskets – banished myself to the bathroom with a bathtub of soaking cane and sat there weaving. Loved the results, hated the process (that is sitting in a cold bathroom – I loved the weaving and creating), and it played havoc with my hands and back.

My mother and I did have a market stall at the Parnell markets where I sold machine knitted sweaters and received my first commisions for fair isle machine knitted sweaters and cardigans – when I had had the machine for only a week or two. Now that was a bit of a leap of faith on part of the purchaser – but it did work out in the end. The knitting machine didn’t last long as a passion as I like knitting whereever I am, in the car, at the dinner table, watching TV (depends on the piece being knitted), at friends and relatives homes everywhere). In fact the knitting machine never really became a passion at all.

1976/78 – Craft group in Titirangi, New Zealand – often at my home where we pooled our knowledge of knitting, crochet, basket weaving as well as the tie dying of fabrics – probably the first “stitch ‘n Bitch” group in New Zealand.

1982/3 – Craft group at Arahoe Primary School – Titirangi, New Zealand. I loved teaching the kids and they were open to trying anything so I did teach various crafts to them including crochet, basket weaving and creating string pictures and more.

1990 – Workshop “Marbling on fabric & paper” with Maxine Lovegrove – Auckland, New Zealand which helped develop my colour use in my beautiful pieces.

In the Netherlands I have added felting, shadow knitting, Hyperbolic planes, and now knitted graffiti to what I do. It is amazing how a new place can encourage you to extend yourself.

I am passionate about colour and texture and uses my knits to surprise and encourage in the wearer a confidence of expression. A confidence to wear the unusual and to enjoy how it feels and how the colours shift and adjust depending on the light of the day or space one is in. A confidence to wear magic – and it is magic.

I am delighted when someone is passionate about what I do.