ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

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.

Why I think it is amazing – It has the most wonderful window displays. Now they don’t change very often but they are always simple, interesting and wonderful. I am not a person particularly interested in Bridal Wear. I just love the window displays and over time I will post many photos of window displays from whereever I have been.

I have taken a number of photos and they of course affected by reflections, and the ability of both my camera and my skills as a photographer – so they are not wonderful photographs, but you may well still enjoy the windows. I do hope so.

Snow Queen, Christmas 2009, Haarlem, Netherlands

The dress has a fur overskirt over the bridal gown, entirely suitable for a Snow Queen, don’t you think.

Soccer World Cup Window Aug 1 2010 - bridal Shop, Haarlem

Everything everywhere in Haarlem and all over the Netherlands was the colour orange – including the gown in the window of the bridal shop.

I recently did a bit of a rave about Grannyg. She, that is Grannyg has a mission to save the world – one craft at a time, and she is doing very well at it, even on her own – she knits, spins, weaves, sews and bakes (I am told gloriously well). Oh, and she drinks coffee. I guess she must also drink tea given that the website is called Crafternoon Tea with Grannyg or maybe the name was a decision born to fill a rhyming need as Crafternoon Coffee with Grannyg does not work at all well.

Well Grannyg and I had a long talk a couple of weeks ago and today the podcast is up and ready so if you are at all curious about podcasts on crafts in, or to do with New Zealand and New Zealanders then do listen to it.

episode 36i – ConnieLene Johnston

Now I am Danish born, but I certainly sound like a New Zealander as you will hear. It is not so surprising as I have lived in New Zealand since December 28th 1948. Of course it is possible that it was the 29th, I just can’t quite recall, it being a wee while ago and at that time I was of an age where dates were not quite so important to me.

We established I have a long history with New Zealand including the craft / art / knitting world and as such am qualified to be interviewed, and what a fun interview that was. It did run on a bit, as it does when you are discussing stuff dear to your heart and it was great fun. Fortunately Grannyg being a very technically au fait granny, she has edited it a bit.

And if you think I laugh and sound like a smoker – believe me I am not and have never been. I spoke to Best Beloved about that and he reminded me that on the day I had a bad air day. What do you think of that – he noticed my bad air day, never ever notices my bad hair days. He was downstairs while Grannyg was interviewing me, or was that while we were talking about stuff we both love. No, it really was an interview.

Isn’t technology great – we spoke across the airwaves, and now I can, and I hope you do as well, we can listen to it over the airwaves – clear as day.

Sorry – I forgot say – we are living in Haarlem, in the Netherlands, In North Holland, which is why this was an interview via the ether. I am calmer about ether today you will note. We have been here in the Netherlands just over 2 years and will return to New Zealand late next year. In the meantime my Best Beloved is working, and I am designing and knitting, just filling in the days with yarn, ideas, colours and even patterns.

I hope these patterns and I probably have several hundred partially written or connie knithand notes that will become patterns. These here patterns are to be sold so I can continue my passion for yarns. I will quietly curl up my toes as the New Zealand pension is unlikely to be sufficient to cover my yarn needs.

Unique Boutique Knits – with my knit patterns

Please go look and then listen. It will help Grannyg with her quest and with luck it will also help me with mine – and please forward the link.

I have been talking, or is that writing, a bit lately about direction on a personal level with various friends, family and colleagues. But I still feel a touch confused.

But I shouldn’t be!

I am communicating like crazy.

Or is that crazily communicating.

Or should it be that I am crazy to communicate

Or what else could it mean?

I am on Facebook and Twitter, and have two etsy shops Unique Boutique Knits where you will find my patterns and some odd knits and bits. Then I have an etsy shop called ConnieLene where you will only find knits and that might be only for a wee while. This one is for the chop as it were.

Then I am on Youtube and as I am sure you have worked out already I am Connieleneknits The videos are of my (our graffiti) knitting exploits as well as bird life and bike travels etc in the Netherlands.

Crazy as it all seems I am also on the Big Idea but there I am ConnieLene Johnston and then there are other places in the world like LinkedIn, Digg as Connieleneknits, Ravelry as ConnieLene, GrownUpsNZ, my mobile for SMS, email, etc – there are too many places that I cannot list for time becomes an issue here.

All these internet connections are so that I can communicate with absolutely anyone who could be interested in me personally, and/or in my work, or in my travels with Best Beloved.

Life goes in full Circles!

Yes it does.

The very first connection I had with the world was with my mother and then with my family and communciation was snail mail, then the telephone other than real live real functional talking. You know that stuff – face to face. Fantastic stuff.

Life, work, marriage, children, illness, death, birth ……..

And we have forgotten to talk.

Oh we do communicate – but talk, what’s that!

Now we communicate via the ether.

I remember ether – it is what I used as a young nurse in an old coackroach ridden hospital ward in Auckland – to stun huge coackroaches into submission to be scooped up and washed down the sluice. I could still hear the scuttling of those other 10 million coackroaches but I did my bit with the ether.

Now I do so much with the ether – that I think everything has come full circle again. I feel like there are another 10 million connections that I am not making in this modern ether.

It is a little scary so.

Right now I just want family and friends and colleagues and fantastic face to face talking for a bit.

Maybe I have been alone here in the Netherlands too long. Maybe it is because I have been recently to New Zealand where we did lots of talking. Maybe it is because my sister has terminal cancer. Maybe it is because my sister is to be married this weekend, maybe it is just that I am not there.

I know, I am not alone – Best Beloved is here. He leaves for his work at around 7.30 in the mornings. I am not sure of the time – he brings me a wonderful coffee up two flights of stairs and then goes to work. He comes home again around 5.30 or 6 generally. I might go to the shops and the rest of the time I am alone.

Gosh I think I am having words with me.

Get up – get out there, only another 12 months and then who knows what we might get up to then – and I have at least enough yarn for another 50 sweaters, not that I will knit sweaters, and I am going to the Knitting and Stitch show in London. Then I will talk, I hope I will be talking a lot.

I am so looking forward to talking.

I will still communicate via the ether, but I am not going to try to make another 10 million ether connections.

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.