ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

Am I a fibre enthusiast?

Well, yes and no. It entirely depends on the creation.

If, like me, you play with colour and create using needles, hooks and pins then it is possible that any fibre will do as long as the colour works for you. So it could be that being a fibre gatherer could really mean that you are a colour coordinator and that what you create just happens to be of a fibre.

Now even though I adore 100% wools, mohair, Angora, cashmere, silk, cotton, alpaca, bamboo, soy, ribbon, fun faux fur, possum and all the betwixts and betweens my first real step to fibre use was the need to create garments for babies as cheaply as possible. I used the yarns I found in the bargain bins and the techniques of knitting and crochet were the means to that end. What did happen for me was that I acquired a great range of yarns of many colours but with very few or only one ball of each – hence colour work became my norm very early on. The fibres were whatever I could purchase cheaply enough and I did not aim to create with any specific yarn type other than the yarn needing to knit at the same tension. I did avoid where possible the early acrylics which were very nasty yarns indeed.

Does that make me a fibre enthusiast or a colour enthusiast?

While I knitted and created pieces of many different yarns I am desirous of having the opportunity of working with the wonderful silky Qiviut fibre from the downy undercoat of the musk ox so it seems I could also be a fibre enthusiast whatever it is that I have said here.

A cautionary tale is a tale told in folklore, to warn its hearer of a danger.

My cautionary tale is that should you feel the need to create with yarn – if you follow my path of buying all and everything by colour you will end up with a stash of many many yarns. They will be of many many types, of a range of thicknesses and you may also end up always knitting and crocheting with many colours in one piece to enable you to work through that stash. It could be dangerous.

For me this is a good place, for others who have viewed both my stash and my work, they are of the opinion that it belongs with me and they will just purchase exactly what is required to create exactly what they wish to knit or crochet.

Yes I didn’t like the early acylic yarns and I would love to knit with Qiviut – so I am probably a fibre and colour enthusiast.

Many many years ago – I attended my first Kaffe session on colour and knitting in New Zealand. I purchased a Kaffe videotape at that time, I do not have it with me here in the Netherlands & cannot recall the title – the subject was knitting with colour, as in many many colours, and viewing your world for ideas to create new knitted pieces using many colours and shapes.

When Kaffe came to New Zealand then I had already been knitting & crocheting using many colours in freeform intarsia since the early 1970′s. I found as everyone does great inspiration in listening to him then & I continued to knit with many colours and yarns even though I was informed by others that my knitting was not normal, nor was my passion for playing with colour. I do however feel quite quite normal.

I have searched the Kaffe Fassett listings in Youtube and cannot see my video tape there. But the concepts in this new video apply to knitting as well as quilting, mosaics and other art and textile art forms.