ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

not knitting, not knotting, knitting knotting, not knitting, knitting yeah, I am knitting.

Well, I will be very soon.

I have been working all day or so it feels, on setting up a Facebook business page – and I keep saying to myself – why? It doesn’t look like a business page, it doesn’t act like a business page – or maybe I am just not a business pager. But the little supportive voice in New Zealand who knows all about these things – profiling and all that stuff tells me I must.

So I am, or I will, or I am progressing – nearly.

I did not choose the option of “other business” (and in hindsight I probably should have done so), and I did choose the “artist” option and it makes a difference to the tabs you receive to play with – and hey you can’t rename the tabs. Well I haven’t discovered if you can rename the tabs. There is no specific function under the tab so why not be able to rename it??? Why can’t I change the business page type to “other Business” without losing what I have already created.

Maybe I am just not a business pager – that could be it.

But I will be back shortly to a multi coloured beret, and then I am finishing my intarsia carbon footprint bag. I have said it before, and I hope you don’t mind.

I love intarsia

I love intarsia

I don’t love pictures in intarsia

I am okay with graphs, I can create them, and follow them, and they do create pictures.

The trouble is I got quite excited about the concept of representing a carbon footprint in knitting or crochet, you know – using our wonderful skills and creativity in a world confused by our presence. So CARBON FOOTPRINTS on our bags, afghans, sweaters (maybe), wall hangings (which is where I started), where ever you like. I just can’t get excited knitting pictures using the graph, (too formal I think) and that is why the Carbon Footprint bag has taken eons.

BUT I absolutely love free form colour work – intarsia knitting – and it keeps calling me, which stops me from what I should be doing.

Maybe, that is why I don’t get the Facebook Business Page model – the nearly formal activity that a business page should be, in an informal social environment.

I am now on beret six – there is some minor madness when one keeps on playing with a piece. These have all been created using Vero yarn but in the different colours that I have here in the Netherlands.

I do miss my yarns that are still in New Zealand.

How can I miss yarn? I cannot even remember what was in my stash there – just that there were lots of yarns, in lots and lots of colours, from many different places in the world. But I do miss the variety in colour, yarn type, do not have sufficient variety here to create pieces as I was doing in New Zealand. I have purchased a lot of different yarns here in the Netherlands and some in Switzerland and in Denmark – I just do not have the quantity, colour range and yarn types here as I did have at home. It takes time to build up a new stash, doesn’t it?

What to do?

I don’t know.

So right now I am knitting berets.

Originally this was in response to a commission from a friend in Australia. But now I need to consider – do I continue with these? Do I complete the commission? Well yes that I must do, which means that beret 7 must be a funky, fuzzy, multicoloured piece. Then I must write up the pattern and then get back to that carbon footprint bag. Maybe I just put the two graphs out, one for the intarsia footprints and the other for carbon footprint using shadow knitting and leave you to decide – should it be on a bag, blanket, pram cover, cushion or on a sweater – should you happen to want a sweater with a foot print or two on it.

I guess that is what should be done.

The beret pattern – will include one in stocking stitch, and one felted from a stocking stitch knit. I won’t try to define the multicolour, multi fibre, intarsia one – that will be free form with little guidance.

I have finally finished the graphs for my Carbon Footprint design. Graph 1 – can be used for intarsia knitting and Graph 2 is a line by line Shadow Knitting opportunity.

It is not that the graphs themselves that have taken so long – I just have too many projects going at one time – and that snowball white Haarlem Ball Warmer keeps on beckoning.

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

I have altered the embroidered design to make the shadow knitting work better. I am knitting the bag, and I have knitted the design itself several times and I have found that it is not essential to work with a solid light and a solid dark yarn to make this work. I have created it with variageted lightish yarn and a black mohair – and it is great.

The bag is being knitted with cream and rusty red coloured cottons. The curiosity of working with shadow knitting – is that it is not always so clear that it is working while you are knitting it. So when I finished the second wall hanging I was pleased to see that it did work (and better than the first) and my carbon footprint certainly exposed itself when viewed on the angle.

Not many carbon footprints in this world are so clear.

Why oh why did I say I was creating this bag pattern – I would rather be knitting my next 1 or 2 or 3 Haarlem Ball warmers – No rest for the wicked, I will just have to do both

2 Danish Shawls – done and photographed, well one is done, the other still needs to have its 2 colour crochet edge added.

2 beanies for boys – done

Some Photographs – done, but I do wish I had a real live model. My grey mannequin – looks like she has fish skin and that her skin needs lots of moisturiser, my black mannequin doesn’t have proper shoulders, although she does looks great in hats – as long as the hat is not also black.

I have added 3 pieces to Ravelry and done some work on the setup of the Etsy shops.

And I am working on Carbon Footprint knitted Bag pattern – maybe one of my ball covers should be carbon footprints???

No I might just stick to Black and White.

I have been mulling over what to do now – and then I checked that WIP list and horrors I still have:

1. IOU’s for 2 pairs of red socks – I will aim for birthdays I think – August and December 2010. Or maybe I will look out for some Peter Blake Lucky red socks on Trade Me instead. BUT that would mean I have still never created a pair of socks. I will have to consider that some more.

2. 2 hats (the slouchy ones I created for Christmas were not quite right for the 12 and 13 year olds), so I am creating more normal beanie hats for the boys – one blue and one green. I started while they were still here – but put it to one side due to an interesting knit art graffiti piece that just took over my activities for a week. Warming the Frozen Balls of Haarlem.

3. I have not looked at the 3 Danish shawls

4. I have finished 2 Moebius scarves – 2 to go.

5. 4 capes to add fastenings etc – the knitting is finished and no ends to do.

6. 1 cardigan to be created / completed, the colours were chosen in April, and I started knitting it then – but it is too stripey in design as per request, and I am not in love with it. I love the colours, I am going to use intarsia or maybe some simple fair isle on this so that it is not a striped cardigan. I am not a good Fair Isle technician – I have very rarely used the technique, so must get over the phobia – so I think it will have to be Fair Isle. Must get it done before April 2010 – as I have had this work in progress for 1 year on 15th April.

BUT I have knitted a scarf for Anna – and you guessed it it has gone and I don’t have a picture. Anna likes dark red – so the scarf is dark red but with short sections of green, brown and even a pink colour all part of the dark red yarn. The yarn was Markoma, Colour 607. I knitted the scarf in k3, p3 rib, without a fringe as Anna is not a fringe person.

I have also created a little cape, poncho or schoncho (schoncho is small poncho for want of a better word). I Used Regia Hand-dye effect yarn (colour 6556) knitted together with a strand of Linie 253 – Hommage in colour 12. Hommage is 76% Kid Mohair. The increases were done using the hyperbolic plane method – that is I increased every 30 stitches on every single row after the neck band. It has great movement, and is light, soft and sexy and quite suitable for a Valentine.

And then there is the pattern and graph for the Carbon Footprint Bag