ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

I recently did a bit of a rave about Grannyg. She, that is Grannyg has a mission to save the world – one craft at a time, and she is doing very well at it, even on her own – she knits, spins, weaves, sews and bakes (I am told gloriously well). Oh, and she drinks coffee. I guess she must also drink tea given that the website is called Crafternoon Tea with Grannyg or maybe the name was a decision born to fill a rhyming need as Crafternoon Coffee with Grannyg does not work at all well.

Well Grannyg and I had a long talk a couple of weeks ago and today the podcast is up and ready so if you are at all curious about podcasts on crafts in, or to do with New Zealand and New Zealanders then do listen to it.

episode 36i – ConnieLene Johnston

Now I am Danish born, but I certainly sound like a New Zealander as you will hear. It is not so surprising as I have lived in New Zealand since December 28th 1948. Of course it is possible that it was the 29th, I just can’t quite recall, it being a wee while ago and at that time I was of an age where dates were not quite so important to me.

We established I have a long history with New Zealand including the craft / art / knitting world and as such am qualified to be interviewed, and what a fun interview that was. It did run on a bit, as it does when you are discussing stuff dear to your heart and it was great fun. Fortunately Grannyg being a very technically au fait granny, she has edited it a bit.

And if you think I laugh and sound like a smoker – believe me I am not and have never been. I spoke to Best Beloved about that and he reminded me that on the day I had a bad air day. What do you think of that – he noticed my bad air day, never ever notices my bad hair days. He was downstairs while Grannyg was interviewing me, or was that while we were talking about stuff we both love. No, it really was an interview.

Isn’t technology great – we spoke across the airwaves, and now I can, and I hope you do as well, we can listen to it over the airwaves – clear as day.

Sorry – I forgot say – we are living in Haarlem, in the Netherlands, In North Holland, which is why this was an interview via the ether. I am calmer about ether today you will note. We have been here in the Netherlands just over 2 years and will return to New Zealand late next year. In the meantime my Best Beloved is working, and I am designing and knitting, just filling in the days with yarn, ideas, colours and even patterns.

I hope these patterns and I probably have several hundred partially written or connie knithand notes that will become patterns. These here patterns are to be sold so I can continue my passion for yarns. I will quietly curl up my toes as the New Zealand pension is unlikely to be sufficient to cover my yarn needs.

Unique Boutique Knits – with my knit patterns

Please go look and then listen. It will help Grannyg with her quest and with luck it will also help me with mine – and please forward the link.

Yeah I know, There are many grannies in New Zealand and throughout the world. Some are called granny and you knew that already. Some are called Oma, G’ma, Grandma, Grandmother, and me I am a grandmother as well and I am called Mormor. For those who don’t know what, or who, or whatever mormor means – it means mothers mother, in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian if google translate is correct.

There are many other “mormor” terms out there, some we know and recognise instantly, and others that we do not know well, like Bestemor, Farmor, Grand-mere, Nonna, Grootmoeder, Abuela and then there is Grandmamma, the very formal Grandparent, Grandmom, Grandmama and Grammy, and so on.

But you guessed it; this is not about grandmothers at all, it is about grannyg_in_nz who has set about saving the world one craft at a time. Now that is big, as big as grannies plans can be.

Grannyg runs, manages, blogs and interviews all and sundry on Crafternoon Tea with Grannyg “A fibrecraft podcast from New Zealand featuring interviews with inspiring people” and she, that very same Grannyg who is going to save the world one craft at a time has interviewed moi, here in the Netherlands by that wonderful technology the telephone, with skype if you please.

Now my Mormor (mothers mother) in Denmark, and my Farmor (my fathers mother) also of Denmark barely met the telephone.

Yet here is GrannyG talking to me across the airwaves (about 11,000 miles of airwaves) about me, and my work, my art, my nuttiness, my knitting, my …. well all sorts – and she wasn’t bribed to do it! She, that is Grannyg actually thinks I could be interesting to talk to.

Crikey.

And I can’t even remember all that we spoke about. We did talk about design and knitting and why I do it the way I do and so on. We did talk about the fact that my knitting is not the “norm” as it were. I can remember some things we didn’t get to like why is this mormor here in the Netherlands doing funny things with knitting and trees and concrete balls, and why …..

But I am not going to tell you anymore about talking with grannyg_in_nz. You will need to check her out yourselves.

Yesterday, and I am sorry I didn’t realise earlier but Grannyg and her website celebrated one year of happy podcasting, blogging and meeting fantastic crafty, arty, interesting folk. Happy anniversary Grannyg_in_nz

Thanks Gran.

I know it is really peculiar.

Well it would be to our mothers; this chatting, writing, blogging, skyping and texting that we do in our world with all the technology that we have at our finger tips.

I am keeping my worldwide family aware of what I am doing using facebook and email, and have sent the link to my first double pointed needle attempt to my Danish cousins who live in America now, and who were in New Zealand as children.

It set me thinking – we need to know about our families, and there may be out there in this wide world many more people from the extended Rohde, Rode and Schrader family in New Zealand, America and Denmark who may not know that in the early years there were an abundance of us in New Zealand, and that we were all taught to cook, bake, knit, sew, garden and embroider by some, or all of the mothers.

The technology now enables us to keep track and to get to know one another again, where we once relied on our mothers to communicate by the hand writing of thousands of letters and sending them to and fro across the world. They are nearly all gone now – those mothers.

I know that all those very very strong women who emigrated to New Zealand, from Denmark, after the war, all had an impact on my interest in various creative forms from cooking, baking and gardening, to embroidery, crochet, and then knitting which has become my big big passion. I never did take to preserving, making jams and pickling cucumbers and there is one other skill that I never did master from those wonderful women and that was the knitting of socks.

All those great women knitted, sewed, embroidered and crocheted everything from dish cloths, hand towels, collars for our dresses, gloves, socks, and all those sweaters and hats and one can just go on and on about what they each did. They baked bread, made yeast buns which had such a delicious warm aroma – that made everyone come in from the fields to eat without even the tiniest call. Children came from everywhere. These mothers made cottage cheese, mayonnaise, pickled everything, bottled everything, and made fruit juice out of the skins of the fruits they had bottled. They stitched and gardened and cooked and still had times to read stories to us and to write letters, thousands of letters – to keep everyone informed. In short they were amazing.

I knit. I knit passsionately as they did, but they were sooo busy everyday that being a little flamboyant with yarns and so on would never ever have happened. Embroidery was the way to colour their lives.

I am so lucky. I am so lucky to have known these amazing women, my mother (mor), my aunts (Tante, Moster, Faster) and all their friends and latterly my mother-in-law. Without them I would not be me.

I am also lucky that I am able to communicate so easily, so readily, with my family using modern technology. What a long way we have come from letter writing to this. We are all so busy, or so we feel. Yet I think those women were really busy and they knew what was important – imparting knowledge, sharing skills, supporting each other and they were full time jobs and were valued and were valuable for the strength and safety of the community.

Anyway – this story all began because of my journey to create “Red Socks” with double pointed needles.

I have put it out there to my family using the technology (facebook), so I do have to add to my TO DO list here again. The RED SOCKS – the Sir Peter Blake Red Socks.

Now Best Beloved and our son requested these for Christmas last. They have an IOU as I haven’t even started these. I have knitted the fingerless gloves using double pointed needles – so I guess the socks will happen sometime, when I have the time to learn a new skill in knitting, if I can stop playing with the technology.