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.

Now that set me up to be creating really wonderful and of course unique pieces. Until this challenge from the Compendium Gallery in Devonport, New Zealand came along, I had created many garments for family and friends, and some for exhibitions and for sale, and yes they were all unique, with many colours and yarns – but they were sweaters, cardigans, jackets, and vests – normal stuff.

I had always created my own patterns – by which I mean I worked out the number of stitches and the colours and any textural additions – I didn’t write down my patterns as I didn’t think anyone would be interested in them. I knitted in a free form way – so that any design on a garment was worked out as I went.

This competition/exhibition however, was a real departure for me, my first truely art piece.

For “The Great New Zealand Cloak” – I created an art piece in the form of a cloak, an absolutely wearable cloak. It sits well and floats from the shoulders. It is light and warm and envelopes one in luxury. When you are wearing it and walk along the shape of it moves in light waves and ripples like the shallows on the sea shore.

I used many colours and a great variety of yarns – silk, mohair, linen, artifical fibres, cotton etc. I had an idea of an island, with the sea, the sand, the lowland/farmlands, the hill country and the snow topped mountains. I didn’t draw a picture. I sorted yarns into the colour sections and knitted the entire piece from the bottom edge. I added a few crocheted embellishments to add texture and increase the tactile experience – they were to indicate trees and plants of the New Zealand bush. The cream linen tassels on the black stripes from the shoulders to the bottom edge – was to show that this was a New Zealand cloak, the original Maori people of New Zealand wore cloaks which were created by weaving the New Zealand flax and they were often embellished with tassels.

The maths for the shaping decreases, and yarn and needle thickness was worked out with a calculator and paper and pencil – my son Morgan and husband John worked it out for me. They were the maths wizards in our household, I just hoped that I was the knitting queen. I did try to find a pattern for a cape/cloak, but wasn’t able to – which is why we created it ourselves. It would have been easier to have had a pattern to create a design on.

I was working full time as Customer Support person in the library software industry. I got up in the morning and knitted till I went to work, came home and continued to knit, and eventually John would come and tell me I really should go to bed. I knitted in the weekends, and over one night just before completion date when I absolutely had to have it finished to be delivered to Pamela at the Compendium Gallery in Devonport, Auckland, New Zealand. The Compendium Gallery is now in the High Street in Central Auckland.

My family cooked, cleaned, washed clothes etc – I slept, dreamt, knitted, pictured this cloak and nothing else in that time.

It took me 6 weeks.