ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

Berets not including the felted one – because I have not felted it as yet.

Also Berets not including my funky fuzzy, multicoloured one – I haven’t knitted it as yet. Sorry Jeanette – at least it is still summer time where you are in Australia. And this morning we got up to another surprisingly white day – a reasonable sprinkling of snow. It is disappearing fast as the day warms up.

Cool Berets, Gorgeous Colours

There will be a pattern for these Berets using Vero, or another 12ply yarn.

And for you knitters out there – the front beret has been blocked, the back two had not been blocked when the photograph was taken. They are drying now.

Read all about it the tree is no longer wearing a fashion scarf

I hope someone takes the scarf and enjoys it as we left it hanging over the tree supports.

It has been fun, we have had a ball – and we are hoping for a return of the great balls of Haarlem, so that the fun can continue. We will keep you posted.

Back to berets, graphs, carbon footprints, bags, jackets, intarsia, e-book and so on. This interlude has been great fun, and we have together had a great deal of fun with it.

I just hope the world of fibre textiles – cottons onto creative textile art installations on spherical objects.

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.

Options : With many yarns and colours of course

One beret created with faux fur fibres in gorgeous shades (to be decided on), with a plain wool knitted band. “A Crazy Soft Character top – and simple band”

The other should be a felted one in the wonderful turquoise, deep blue, purple delicious colour range with fancy bits included to make a dramatic statement. I don’t have a pattern for either – but will work from the two I have already created.

Remember many yarns and many colours

My brain (or is it my eyes), is seeing balls everywhere – so I have to concentrate on something sensible like my carbon footprint bag pattern and your two berets and I am glad that you like them both – and that you will go for colour explosions in both with the felted one in a variety of yarns in those rich purples, turquoises and blues.

This is a delightful way to design and then create a unique shawl as a gift or for yourself using only yarns from your stash. Sort through your yarns and find a group of colours that work together, by tone, or colour group, or contrast – whatever excites your eye when you lay them out together. The yarns should knit up at the same approximate gauge.

Select the needle required for the common weight of yarn. For example – Mainly 8 ply or double knit yarns – use a 4 or 4.5 mm needle.
It is generally not a good idea to use fine lace weight yarn unless you choose to use 2 or 3 strands knitted together to approximate the required weight and for the same reason don’t use bulky yarn if you are knitting mostly in double knit or 8 ply yarns. Having said that some yarns completely out of line with the whole can look very interesting and will not put your shawl out of shape as long as you are judicious about the amount you use and where you choose to include it. And I do do it all the time.

Take your yarns and lay them on the table in order of the quantity that you have – maybe 5 balls colour 1, 3 balls colour 2, 1 ball each of colour 3, 4, and 5, and oddments. Never never discard oddments.

Create a sequence for your yarn amounts like I have done for my listed yarn amounts – Col.1, Col.2, Col.3, oddments; Col.1, Col.2, Col.3, Col.4, oddments; Col.1, Col.2, Col.3, Col.4, Col.5, oddments and back to Col.1 and so on.

For my example I would knit 4 rows of Col.1 and 2 rows of Col.2, 1 row of Col.3, 4, & 5 and knit a row of any group of oddments. If you have lots of oddments – Knit 2 rows each time

Cast On 4 Stitches. Slip 1, K 1, YO k to end – on every row. Continue till it is the right size for you. The Cast off row can be a row of oddments or any of the colours still available at the end. There is more finishing if you use a group of yarns to Cast Off but then you are creating a unique piece.

Add a fringe if you wish.

You do not need as many skeins of each yarn as I have suggested – you can have all part skeins, or oddments, variegated yarns, faux fur – absolutely any yarns as long as they knit at about the same gauge. If you have 25 small amounts of yarn and several skeins of black or dark blue or purple or whatever – You can frame sections of many colours with the solid colour that you have a reasonable amount of. In this type of colour design work – what matters most is that the colours together please your eye. It is important to trust your instinct or response when looking at the colours together.

Go for it, knock ‘em dead with your design skills. It is fun.

I have finally established my presence at “The Place to buy and sell all things handmade” ETSY.

Well it is not exactly a presence yet. I have managed to add 4 items to each shop and to set up a basic environment. It is amazing what has to be done to establish a great cyberspace presence. It will take me a bit of time to get my head around the process.

See Connielene and Unique Boutique

The very silly reason for 2 ETSY shops is that I didn’t read all the detail properly, well I didn’t absorb all the detail properly and added Unique Boutique before realising that my user name was also my shop name. So I will see how two Etsy shops go and decide later whether it is worth the effort or not.

My aim with Connielene is to include those pieces which are unique – these pieces will generally use many, many different colours; many, many different fibres and should be exciting and magic to wear. They will also be impossible to ever repeat. They will be the pieces that could be in exhibitions.

I will also include my edgy fashion pieces like my NOT fox fur capelet. These I can repeat, and do, and they have become an important part of my collection.

In Unique Boutique I will include the things I create with only one or two yarns and/or colours and are quite simple – but each will still be unique – as I do not usually purchase enough yarn to repeat exactly any piece.

I will also include my shadow knitted wall hangings and new felted pieces in the ConnieLene shop.

I am going to write an ebook on my favourite knitting subject – Intarsia. The Intarsia free form process is my passion – but the technicality of working in the round, using a graph, working out the colour scheme etc will all be covered. It will be Intarsia from go to whereever it could take me and of course you. I would hope that my passion for Intarsia knitting might also make a convert of you to this method of colourwork in your knitting.

Would such a book be of interest to you? If so please let me know by emailing me with “I wish to be informed on the progress of the ebook on Intarsia knitting” in the subject field.

Even though I am in the Netherlands, and I do not have a huge stash of yarn here – I am reverting to the more passionate form of designing – I am going forward, or back depending on your point of view, to creating unique pieces with passion, colour, surprise. Pieces that spark a passion in others, pieces that make people want to stroke them to feel the yarns, and even to looking closely to see just how many different yarns, how many different colours I used, and how they work together.

Most of you will not know about our glorious “K” Road (Karangahape Road, Auckland, New Zealand). I used to work in a little street off the notorious “K” Road. One day when I was walking along on my way to work (as a systems consultant for libraries – believe it or not) wearing one of my multi coloured mohair batwing sweaters knitted in the Intarsia method a couple of very tall masculine looking women in very short skirts spoke to me as they tottered by in their very high heels. “Love your sweater darling”. I loved it – it made my day.

Another time in a little restaurant/bar, the name I of which I cannot recall, but just off the notorious “K” Rd the owner, a very charming man – came up to me and stroked my shoulder, well he stroked my very colourful intarsia knit sweater – and said I love your sweater “darling”. Hmm – That could make one very uncomfortable, after all this was the notorious “K” Rd, but he wasn’t stroking me you understand, he was stroking the sweater.

I loved it and I want that to happen every day.

So I am going to knit with passion, colour, multiple yarns, in intarsia, in the round – whatever it takes so that I feel joyous, passionate, open to new experiences, artistic, creative, and I am going to make myself a new piece because I have realised that I no longer own or wear a delightful piece that just might excite someone else.