ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

I wonder what we will do next year – to brighten up our winter evenings. It has been necessary in this cold winter with short daylight hours to create something which is new and exciting, to stimulate us, and maybe challenge and also delight others. The Ball Warmers have done that for us, and the tree and scarf was what started it all off, after that fateful email that I received about knit art Graffiti.

Next winter, well I don’t know what we will do. But now we must disrobe the tree and allow nature to create its own wonder with the birds, bees, leaves, grass, flowers, sunshine and the people in the parks. The scarf is no longer required to brighten a winter day.

Could this piece about the tree with a designer scarf have belonged here on Connielene instead of on Our Story here in the Netherlands. I don’t know – so you could check the story by following the link.

For some of the story in photographs see these from Flickr.

Enjoy

We will disrobe the tree today.

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.

This will be a great knitting day – I am discarding my Haarlem Ball Project, as without balls there can be no project (that is the news today)

It is a real pity because I was planning a Delft intarsia or fair isle piece, and an orange piece in preparation for Queens Day.

So back to real work today

Knitting, Designing, Colour, Yarn, Abstract ideas, Thinking, Ball Warmers.
Writing, Colour, Intarsia, E-book, Carbon Footprint, Beret’s, Intarsia Jacket, Pattern for Ravelry, Thinking,
Ball Warmers.

It is not as if I have nothing to do.

Help! They are gone !

Who took the Haarlem Balls?

Those elegant balls in the most gorgeous town square (Grote Markt) we have been in. Those gorgeous balls that were used to sit on and talk to your buddies in the summer.

Those elegant balls on an elegant curve delineating the road from the square.

Those balls that were so right in a town square of such age, beauty and elegance. No other shape, or style of divider could ever do in that space.

And then of course there are the Ball Warmers themselves, so far none of the measured balls in Maastricht or the loosely measured balls in California match the size of these Haarlem Balls.

So my knitting pattern suggestion will never have another use.

The snow ball and the formal ball gown – will not have a place where they can be proudly displayed.

Snowing, a grey ball being disguised as a snow ball

Why oh why has this happened?????

Is it because I cannot read sufficient Dutch to have known they were to be removed?

Or is it because the newspapers that I can manage to read some of, were not delivered?

I could have installed the Ball Warmers – even for a brief time. These Ball warmers will never be seen in all their glory. People using the square will not be able to smile at the silliness, or the surprise, or the delight of great concrete balls with covers; knitted art designer covers.

Right now I am so shattered, and as I didn’t take my camera with me today – I do not have a photograph of the square without balls.

I will add photos of the square without the balls later maybe, when I have the strength to return. Maybe, just maybe, they will be put back before I can return there.

And this will just have been a nightmare.

I have finally finished the graphs for my Carbon Footprint design. Graph 1 – can be used for intarsia knitting and Graph 2 is a line by line Shadow Knitting opportunity.

It is not that the graphs themselves that have taken so long – I just have too many projects going at one time – and that snowball white Haarlem Ball Warmer keeps on beckoning.

As I said in an previous post I have purchased a digitally restored eBook which included the pattern for a crocheted bathmat with a chart to use to embroider a footprint on to the crocheted bathmat. This pattern was originally published by The American Thread Company, Star Rug Book No. 93, in 1952.

I have altered the embroidered design to make the shadow knitting work better. I am knitting the bag, and I have knitted the design itself several times and I have found that it is not essential to work with a solid light and a solid dark yarn to make this work. I have created it with variageted lightish yarn and a black mohair – and it is great.

The bag is being knitted with cream and rusty red coloured cottons. The curiosity of working with shadow knitting – is that it is not always so clear that it is working while you are knitting it. So when I finished the second wall hanging I was pleased to see that it did work (and better than the first) and my carbon footprint certainly exposed itself when viewed on the angle.

Not many carbon footprints in this world are so clear.

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 been trying to add pattern information and links on Ravelry – and have decided that it is in the too hard basket. Fortunately the pattern link I was trying to add is neither of those I have promised to add.

The pattern was to be my Vertical Asia Crossover Jacket – which I was going to make available free. Should it ever be there I will be very glad.

This is a pattern which can be used to reduce some of that stash. In my example I used 6 different colours, mainly mohair but all yarns that knitted up at 12 st / 19 rows for 10cm. If you want this pattern please contact me using form below and I will send you the PDF.

In the meantime my Carbon Footprint bag and Kiwi Cape Patterns will have to wait until I get my brain in order so I can unravel the process on Ravelry to make them available to you. I am sure it can be done as many have before me, but today the braincells are struggling. It must be all the snow we have had here in Haarlem. I am too cold and the brain doesn’t work.

So it is back to the knitting and I will update on progress as there is any.

Please email me using the contact form stating in the subject field that you would like a copy of the pdf file of my Vertical Asia Crossover Jacket pattern.

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.

Cape knitted with mohair and faux fur fibre

I have created quite a few knitted capes of several different styles over the last few years and have decided to make this knitting pattern available on Ravelry as soon as I can.