ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

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.

I will have a very busy week.

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.

Miriam Tegels is the Guinness World Record Holder Speed Knitter 2006.

She is speed knitter extraordinaire and a teacher of many knitting skills from lace, double knitting, knitting with beads, illusion knitting and more as well as convenor of this wonderful knit retreat which is held in a gorgeous woodland setting with accommodation at the Groenewoud Countryhouse. The Finnish style Lodge is situated in the wooded area of Swalmen (Mid Limburg), right on the banks of the river Swalm.

Link to the “Knitting in Nature” knit retreat. Do check out the workshops included as well as the wonderful activities available in this gorgeous location.

Further Information including links to photos from previous retreats here

I am delighted that I am able to teach my workshop “Freeform Intarsia” at Miriams wonderful knit retreat. Come and let your knit inhibitions fly away.

Where to start?

Well we are relocating back to New Zealand. Why?

That permanent position that Best Beloved took on here in the Netherlands suddenly had an unexpected end date. Why is that? It seems that the company has a rule that you cannot work for this company after the age of 65 and Best Beloved is 65. Not only that, you must leave at the end of the month previous to the month in which you do turn 65. As it happens Best Beloved was 65 on the 15th of August last year (2010). There was some negotiation from November 2009 (when some bright spark in the HR department discovered that OMG – he will be 65 next year and must be told he has to go) and a contract was finally agreed some time in June (7 months later) and signed in August I think, just as he was racing to the finishing post. His contract gave him up to 31st July this year being the month before he turns 66. What an enlightened company.

So we are going back to New Zealand a little earlier than planned because much as we love living here we simply could not afford to live here as retirees. And of course there is a huge plus to returning to New Zealand – we will be back with family and friends, back with daughter and grandson, back with my sister who is ill, and back to a house with a garden, back to a new chapter of our life together with Best Beloved as a retiree.

Sadly we will also be back to requiring a car – but that is another story.

Also sadly for us, our son and his family will still be living in Switzerland, we will not have access to live music as we have here, museums, Europe, Denmark, Danish family specifically and then of course there is the cycling etc etc etc….. We do not cycle in New Zealand as the bike lanes are few and far between.

To get our fill of cycling our return journey will begin with us cycling from here in Haarlem, the Netherlands to Untersiggenthal in Switzerland, approximately 900k’s. That story will be recorded on our personal blog. You know the kind of stuff – two crazy oldies last seen cycling into the sunset…… We are planning the route so we are not too far from railway travel options should it prove a journey too difficult on bad days – like asthma days, or falling off the bikes, you know the kind of stuff.

And for me this year brings new experiences with my work – I have 3 workshops booked and 2 more in January 2012.

The first is “Freeform Intarsia”and will be here in the Netherlands at a Knit Retreat in Swalmen, in North Limburg region. I will post the details when I have them. It will be in the week 11-15th of July. Thank you to Miriam Tegels whom I met at a workshop with Nicky Epstein last year. Miriam holds the Guinness World Record for Speed Knitting. She is also a talented knitter in all areas who will be taking 4 workshops during the retreat.

The New Zealand workshops will be held in Ellerslie at Mishi Yarns in November and then again in January 2012. Thank you Michele. Michele is Mishi Yarns in Ellerslie and has sourced as many New Zealand made yarns as possible including Naturally Yarns, Zealana, Rare Yarns, Supreme Possum Merino, Touch Yarns, Knitsch Sock Yarns, Vintage Purls and Forever Green Elan. So if you want New Zealand yarns contact Michele.

The Freeform Intarsia workshop detail is here. I will post a link to the Colour Play workshop when have that ready.

The list could be longer, but it is all I can handle today.

Come and let your imagination fly.

Throw your inhibitions to the wind & have fun doing it.
Together we will create a knitted square or two using free form intarsia techniques. The resulting piece(s) can be used to create a bag or cushion cover. The workshop will be an introduction to intarsia knitting and techniques, as well as an encouragement to explore using freeform techniques and of course playing with colour and fibres.

You will be encouraged / challenged to knit in a free form way with many colours.

Workshop pack:

• Yarn (at least 12 colours) in sufficient quantities to knit a freeform design square or rectangle.
• 4 page Booklet – Basic Intarsia Information – Instructions & Hints
• Knitting terms translation sheet English to Dutch
• Graphed free form design to start your own free form piece. Each participant will have a different design.
• Instructions of how to use the resulting piece as a section on a cushion cover or bag.

There will be additional yarns available should they be required.

I will bring completed examples of a cushion and bag so that you can see how your unique and freeform intarsia knitted piece can be used.

I will also bring examples of free form intarsia from simple – a waistcoat, to dramatic – my “Great New Zealand Cloak – Island” and I hope that I will inspire participants to add freeform knitting to their knitting repetoire.

Participants should bring their own 4mm needles, sewing needle and scissors.

ConnieLene Knit Biography

I have been a knitter since I was a child and am most passionate about colour. I began to create with many yarns and colours in the 1970’s and my first exhibition and the fashion parade which included 3 of my pieces was in 1989 in Auckland, New Zealand. A second followed in Hawaii in the same year. I have continued to participate in exhibitions wherever possible.
I most often create garments using the freeform intarsia method – using many, many yarns and colours to create each piece and thereby guarantee that each piece is unique. Generally, I do not work from a graph or even a picture, just from an idea. I consider the shape of the garment to be the canvas, and the freeform design I knit inside the framework or canvas is the art of knitting.

I love having the opportunity to encourage people to knit with many colours so my patterns often include simple intarsia information just in case a knitter might want to try the intarsia technique.

I am a member of Ravelry & The Knitting Guild of America. My TKGA membership is as Teacher / Designer.

Exhibitions include the following:

• WoolOn Creative Fashion Event, Alexandra, New Zealand – October 2010
• WoolOn Creative Fashion Event, Alexandra, New Zealand – October 2009
• Alpaca Exposition 2009 – Fielding, New Zealand – September 2009
• Colour Play Exhibition at the Randolph St Gallery – Whitecliffe School of Fine Arts & Design. September 2007. My unique knit designs on the gallery walls alongside the work of BFA Fashion design students from Whitecliffe. The Vogue Knitting Tour of Australia and New Zealand 2007, hosted by Nicky Epstein attended.
• “Gumbo Ya-Ya” 2002 – This was an exciting multi-media exhibition of paintings, sculpture and knit garments, held at the Yvonne Rust Gallery, The Quarry, in Whangarei, Northland, New Zealand.
• New Zealand Spinning, Weaving and Woolcrafts Society Exhibition held at Victoria University, Wellington
• The Great New Zealand Cloak -1992 Certificate of Merit: Judged by Lucy Goffin, Textile Artist, Great Britain
• Leather and Wool to Wear – 1992
• Wool to Wear – 1991
• N.Z. Wool Capital Fashion Design – 1990 Nominated: The Peter Dunkerly / Woolrest Knitwear in Fashion Award Exhibition at the Century Theatre, Napier
• The Wearable Art Collection
• The Fashion Parade – 1989 – My work was included in an exhibition and parade in Orewa, New Zealand, followed by a parade in Honolulu. All the artists and designers were from Rodney District, north of Auckland.

Published:

• HotHive Textiles Warming the Cold Balls of Haarlem January 2010
• Expatica Newsletter 2010
• GrownUps Article “A Knitting Nutter ” March 2010
• Textile Fibre Forum Vol. 13, issue 1 No.39, 1994

Recent Interviews:

• Podcast – Interview with Grannyg on crafternoon tea – September 2010
• The English Breakfast Radio, Amsterdam, with Leandra Julien – January 2010