ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

I have spoken at times of the cloak that I created back in 1992 – very nearly 20 years ago. This cloak has been in exhibitions, it has been tried on by many people, it has been photographed on many people. Sadly it is showing its age.

I am attending the knit retreat “Knitting in Nature beginning tomorrow, and I am taking my “Island” The Great New Zealand cloak with me to show to the other knitters there. Why? Well I am teaching a workshop on Intarsia Knitting and this is one of the best examples I still own of my intarsia creations. I hope that seeing it will still inspire someone of the group to try freeform intarsia knitting after they complete the workshop.

In late 1992 or early 1993 the cloak was in an exhibition at Victoria University in Wellington, New Zealand. The judges there decided that it was not suitable to be sold due to the fragile nature of the creation. I think 20 years of display and wearing is not bad for a creation of a fragile nature, using around 90 or so different yarns from wool, mohair to linen and a variety of fancy fibres. I actually think it has done rather well. And I am so glad it was not listed for sale as my family and I have loved it and worn it, as well as exhibited it.

I think “Knitting in Nature” may well be its last journey because it is rather thin and frail in some sections now, and we will store it away gently on our return to New Zealand and hope that we can still bring it from time to time and say “we remember this piece very well” and put it away again.

I am feeling rather sad that this piece that has been such a big part of my life is not going to be worn again BUT that does mean that it is time for another creation.

I haven’t had a functioning computer for some months and am catching up. Today I have checked Google Analytics for the first time in many months.

This site has had 18,898 visitors since 19 November 2009 when analytics was set up. That is 19 months with an average monthly visitor count a smidgeon less than 1,000 per month. In the last few months where I have not been adding to the website due to the lack of computer facilities to do so the average has still been just a smidgeon over 1,025 per month.

Thank you so much for still looking.

Just for fun:
19 months
19 November 2009
19,000 visitors (very very nearly)

The top post was Beret Pattern in 8ply or double knitting is on Etsy now It is now available once more on Etsy. So that is the news – my Etsy shop is opened with its patterns once more as well.

There is a project that makes my mind boggle at the sheer time, dedication and mastery of the craft that will be required to create it?

You already know that generally I do not knit fair isle. I have created a sweet little pinafore with a row of hearts – which were created with yarns stranded across the back – a very simple Fair Isle. My boats on little boys sweaters were done with intarsia. When I had a knitting machine eons ago – I did manage to create pieces with Fair isle designs.

You also know that I attended a workshop in Amsterdam with Danish knit designer and artist Christel Seyfarth

Christel lives and works on the Danish island of Fano. The changing tides, the special light and the sky are all important source of inspiration for her special and unique knit designs. She is fascinated by traditional clothes and takes the old patterns and designs and translates them into modern creations and her creations are in Fair Isle. She showed us at that workshop in Amsterdam that although it looks complex it is in fact simple fair isle. Her work is amazing in its construction, colour use and the finishing is just superb.

I was gobsmacked on that day and I still think of it with a great deal of pleasure – for all sorts of reasons. We both love the sea and light, our environments, colours, and yarns. There is pleasure in all of those things – but I simply cannot imagine myself with the skills and patience and the dedication to create one of her truely amazing pieces and I am terrified of steeks. Piffle you say! No it is not piffle.

It is not the Fair Isle, that seems to be as easy as Christel has said. It is not the colour – I am in love with colour. The pieces are made in rectangles and triangles – easy. It is the techniques including the steeks, and the dramatic finishing of each piece.

Do I have the patience, the skills, the confidence? I don’t actually know.

So my challenge is to knit a piece designed by Christel Seyfarth. On my “to do” list for me, that is the finished piece which will be created by me will also be for me. It will have to wait until we have settled back in New Zealand. So the winter of 2012 on New Zealand – that will be July to September 2012 – my big project will be a Christel Seyfarth design. It will include steeks – which as I have said already, quite frankly terrify me.

I am no longer going to be a scaredy cat regarding steeks. So there.

I have been asked about a better photo of the sweater – sadly it was created way back in 1978 or 1979 and the photograph on the post was scanned into my computer a few years ago. The original photo is in New Zealand “somewhere” and I am living in the Netherlands so a better scan is not possible right now.

It is possible that there are other photos and maybe I will recreate the sweater as it was quite lovely and a fairly simple intarsia design. It would be reasonably easy to chart for someone else to recreate as well. It will not be high on my “To Do” list though as we are working hard on planning our relocation to New Zealand.

This week I have managed to have new passport photos taken, and I do have to go to The Hague to submit my application to the Danish consulate there in person – so I will do that soon. My passport will expire in July and we leave the Netherlands in the first week of August.

I have made arrangements with several relocation companies and to come and cost the removal of our belongings to New Zealand and I have a a couple of days in Maastricht as Best Beloved will be working there – it will be lovely to be there in the Spring.

In this next week I shall be sorting out stuff that we will not take home, and be placing them to one side so they are not included in the costings to get our stuff home. These will go to de Schalm later for them to onsell. De Schalm is a local “not for profit” business. Their function is to offer opportunity for unemployed people to learn skills that may assist them into work. The mainly youngsters learn to handle cash, take care of the shop, create pieces to sell either sewing, woodwork, bike repair, all sorts of practical skills. We have purchased odd chairs, dining room table etc from there to set ourselves with bits we didn’t bring from New Zealand.

knitted house closeup

Will I also knit in this next week? Yes, I will be working on my two knitted houses for the Stephanie Rhode installation and delivering those to her in the next couple of weeks.

Anything else – well maybe, we’ll see.

This weekend, WELL we had planned to go to Nieuwegein to the Breidag and Haakdag: the hottest event of the Netherlands! . There seems to be no train from Haarlem to Amsterdam where we can head to Utrecht and then to Nieuwegein and it has become a rather convoluted journey with several buses, trains, and even a tram. It would take us about 2 hours from here in Haarlem. And that Best Beloved has a heavy cold and has now pulled out of this days planned travel. We had wanted to take our bikes, but because there is no train from here to make connections from Amsterdam and we cannot take bikes on the bus and it is too far for us to ride yet, especially in the time we have today – we have decided not to go.

Such a pity as I had hoped to meet with Miriam Tegels, and maybe @PickledTreats would also have been there.

So I will wander in Haarlem instead – it is a great place to wander.

Best Beloved will rest.

Day Four: 31st March. Where is it now?

I do know exactly what happened to that stained glass sweater – but I have not thought about it in a very long time.

This sweater was initially created for a fashion parade in Orewa, north of Auckland, New Zealand. It must have been around 1989. It was a simple intarsia sweater, created with various wonderful browns/oranges/fawns variegated yarns separated by black mohair lines – hence “stained glass”

I believe that our daughter was to wear said sweater in the parade, and right now I cannot remember if she actually did so. But I guess that is okay after all these years.

The sweater was in the parade in Orewa and then went with other local fashion designs and two other knits of mine to Hawaii for a parade and event there.

Our daughter at the time had very serious glandular fever and had been away from school for 6 months – and her recovery was very slow. She had been very down, a young teenager with lots to look forward to, being very ill for some considerable time. We encouraged her to apply for a Rotary Scholarship which if successful would provide her impetus with something so big to look forward to. She had to decide if she could go to Hawaii for the fashion parade as a model or to “somewhere” on the Rotary Scholarship if she was successful.

She opted for the Rotary Scholarship and was successful. – It is another story but even up to a few weeks from departure date for Europe on that scholarship we were all uncertain if she the strength to go – but she did and she had a wonderful year in Denmark.

Back to the sweater – which went to Hawaii without her.

After the sweater was paraded in all its glory along with two other pieces of mine in Hawaii it returned to New Zealand and it became our daughters sweater and she wore it for many years. She went on to university in Auckland, where she lived in a flat with others and one of the others had a dog. Nothing unusual in that of course – except that the sweater faded from view. One day I asked about the sweater which had travelled the world and been part of her life for a long time and it transpired that the “dog” had chewed a great deal of it. That is it was unwearable and destroyed.

She sheepishly brought the sweater home and we looked it and we put it to one side. I did plan to undo, unravel, reknit etc the sweater – but I kept looking, I washed it by hand very gently and looked at it some more.

Eventually I decided that it was just too hard to fix. Mohair is very difficult to undo and the damage was extensive.

So it went to the sweater pile in the ether somewhere.