ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

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 have had a really wild week.

It is has been freezing, snowing and my hands have really struggled with the activities we have carried out out in that cold wintery environment.

On Wednesday I was interviewed by Leandra and her team on Amsterdam English Breakfast Radio. That was a great experience, and the radio interview is also on video. (Radio with pictures – was a New Zealand TV programme many years ago).

We then tested a ball for size in a freezing Maastricht, and followed that with the ball dress rehearsal in Haarlem. Both of those freezing activities are on video. We are amateurs for sure, the commentary is bizarre – that is I didn’t realise it was recording the activity, let alone what we were saying. We will change it when we work out how. But in one wild wintery week I have been on video in three separate cities.

I do have to get away from these balls. My black formal ball warmer is progressing well – and I keep seeing ideas in my head for new ball pieces.

So I am not creating ball warmers anymore, that is until the next time

I am creating an intarsia piece with hairy “carbon footprint” design. This may well be my only ever graphed intarsia piece. I just don’t knit pictures.

I am a free form flowing kind of knitter, I just don’t like graphs. I know I can do it – but when I am surrounded by many yarns and many colours of yarns I really just want to play.

So I am going to work through the list below until I can play some more

1. Knit Carbon Footprint in intarsia

2. Complete Carbon Footprint – shadow knitting version

3. Knit 2 berets for a very dear friend – I have the yarns and I am playing with them – sorting, changing the colour order, thinking about what other colour or yarn type I could add.

4. Finish formal black ball warmer

then

colour

colour play

and then colour play some more

that is the plan