ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

Berets not including the felted one – because I have not felted it as yet.

Also Berets not including my funky fuzzy, multicoloured one – I haven’t knitted it as yet. Sorry Jeanette – at least it is still summer time where you are in Australia. And this morning we got up to another surprisingly white day – a reasonable sprinkling of snow. It is disappearing fast as the day warms up.

There will be a pattern for these Berets using Vero, or another 12ply yarn.

And for you knitters out there – the front beret has been blocked, the back two had not been blocked when the photograph was taken. They are drying now.

Read all about it the tree is no longer wearing a fashion scarf

I hope someone takes the scarf and enjoys it as we left it hanging over the tree supports.

It has been fun, we have had a ball – and we are hoping for a return of the great balls of Haarlem, so that the fun can continue. We will keep you posted.

Back to berets, graphs, carbon footprints, bags, jackets, intarsia, e-book and so on. This interlude has been great fun, and we have together had a great deal of fun with it.

I just hope the world of fibre textiles – cottons onto creative textile art installations on spherical objects.

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.

I have lots of knitting to do

Mind you, I always have lots of exciting knitting to do. Today I have loaded videos of my grandson with messages to his grandad onto Youtube. These were too big to attach to an email, but they were too wonderful to ignore. We do not have such records from our own children, it is so good to have these of our grandson.

So now Grandad and Grandson can both see from opposite sides of the world – what Tomas had to say and show his Grandad.

While I was working on the videos – my delicious cream neck warmer, and one Vero beret are drying. The beret I should felt is waiting, and so is my new beret on the needles.

I need to add to etsy shops as well today. It is hard to keep up with Ravelry, Etsy, knitting, felting, blocking, patterns, carbon footprint, ball warmers, spherical objects world wide, my intarsia e-book, as well as a very special small person in New Zealand and writing Our story of two older persons doing their OE (Overseas Experience) at a rather late stage of their lives.

Then of course I still need to check the tree – to see if it still has its scarf. If it does, we will remove it this weekend – to allow it to grow and blossom over the spring and summer.

I will leave the scarf hanging on a lower branch – so if someone needs it they can take it.

The news about the balls is not good – see next post

But HOW to create a Knitted piece to cover a Haarlem Ball – or other spherical object – that is the question?

You need to know the size of your sphere – ball. My first one was 150cm plus a handspan (my handspan).

I began with 8 stitches, increased to 320 stitches by increasing 8 times on every 4th round (more or less). I knitted this on a circular needle and circularly – entirely appropriate for a circular object.

I used 8 ply or double knit yarn on 4mm needles. The length from the top point to 320 stitches should be around 80cm. I have knitted the last of the top section of about 10 cm in k1p1 rib to help the cover to cling well. It is not a good look to have a baggy saggy ball warmer. There is a bit of give and take – because I didn’t knit this first half with only 8 ply (DK) yarns – I included mohair and faux fur fibres and some cotton yarns. So I needed to measure the piece for length as I knitted and adjust the increases and I will have to do the same when I do the decreases. SO this is not a formal pattern – this is a “suck it and see” piece of knitting.

Decreasing will be the increasing process in reverse – except that I will end up with around 32 stitches because the bottom half doesn’t present the full sphere to you as it is set in concrete. This half will still be created on a circular needle, but is not longer knitted circularly otherwise it will not fit over the ball. So back and forth from the centre down (more or less). I will knit the bottom half in garter stitch to assist it to join more easily – it is awkward to join the ball warmer together as I found with the first Haarlem Ball Warmer. I think I will use velcroe on this one – so that it can be joined more easily and removed more easily. It could then live another day as something else maybe.

There are lots of balls to alter however temporarily here in Haarlem, and also in Maastricht, so maybe they are everywhere in the Netherlands and I have received reports of very large balls in California.

If you found the lost Haarlem Ball Warmer – what could you use it for?

First you would discover that I didn’t finish all the ends properly – sorry. That was because I was really excited or nuts. So finish the ends first.

then consider the following options:

1. Cover ball 13 (the original chosen ball)
2. Hat – for big hair
3. Cape for a small person (fold in half – place over/around the shoulders, pin
4. Add handles – BIG shopping bag
5. Nest liner – for a big big bird (stork or Grey heron – You will need help to get up the tree)
6. Cut it in two around the middle – make the top half into a bag by adding I-cord handles, and the bottom half into a hat by stitching together the cut edge.
7. same as 6 – but knit an edge around it – decreasing the stitches on each row so that it will fit around your head , to make one huge slouchy hat. Felt the other half – and see just how good it will be as a beret. I am not sure that all the yarns will felt – so it will be a really artistic beret.
8. Cut a hole in the top – crochet around the top edge – a skirt. The bottom edge is needs finishing as well – it has a thread through each stitch – so some work there as well – sorry.
9. Cut armholes and neck hole and crochet around the edges of these – dress for small person.
10. Unravel – knit a new ball warmer – using the intarsia technique
11. Unravel – knit a baby blanket
12. or cot cover
13. or pram cover
14. or childs sweater
15 Dog kennel liner
16 Cat bed
17 Knee Rug
18 Find a thick tree trunk and attach the ball warmer
19 Fill it with lots beans – sew together the bottom edge, voila a child’s bean bag. It might be sensible to make a bag for the beans first – or they could leak out.
20 Make a fat cushion
21. Fill it with little balls – ball toy for large large cat
22. Felt it – stretch it into a pleasing organic shape – embellish it and you have created a wall hanging

To be continued, brain is tired now, going to bed.

Maybe there will not be 100 ways to use a stolen ball warmer

The sun was shining, the sky blue, the ground white, the trees black with white snow still clutching to the branches and down the sides of the trunk – so I went out and it was freezing, freezing, freezing cold -5.2c, at about 3pm. But I still went as I had decided to measure a Haarlem Ball so that we do not have take the knitting to the ball until it is time to install it.

This is because it was so very cold every night we took the knitting to the ball, and our hands froze, and we had to fortify ourselves with the local gluhwein (mulled wine), which you will appreciate was tough. I also need to test my ability to create a knitting pattern to fit a large ball. I might have to sneak it there just once so that at install time it will definitely be okay.

I arrived at the row of balls – took out the tape measure, hunkered down, wrapped it around – and a 1.5cm tape measure is too short to measure a Haarlem Ball. So scientifically speaking – the ball circumference is 150cm plus 1 hand span and I will work to that.

I have to revise down the temperature on the night we installed the original Haarlem Ball Cover, knowing what the temperature was today when I went out. On install night it must have been at least -5, plus wind chill.

I have begun my new ball covers – well I have begun sorting my yarns, checking for the various textures, thickness of the yarn, deciding if 2 or 3 threads are required to knit the same tension as other yarns and so on.

Did you know there are hundreds of white and hundreds of black. I don’t have hundreds of each (I wish I did) – but I am matching yarns – short leftover lengths and assessing them against each other and seeing if any are the same colour and type. Trouble is that I have not labelled these pieces – so have to look at each one, and decide – so that when I knit them up – I will not knit 2 yarns the same, next to each other.

As one of these ball covers will be white, I want the many whites to show as different whites up close – although the overall effect will be white. I expect the same with the black yarns.

The end view I hope will be that nothing is very clear, that is nothing is simply black or white.

You might ask – why don’t I label these short lengths of yarn – the answer of course is that there are too many. Usually when I knit with many yarns, I also knit with many colours, so I have never got into the habit of labelling my leftovers. I have never knitted with many whites or with many blacks in one piece.

I still have to measure the ball so that we do not have to go out in the freezing cold each eveningto check the progress and sizing of the knitting as we did with the first one.

It is -4c right now, the sun is shinning and there is no or little wind so no excuses – must go measure.

The knitted scarf is still on the tree.

The knitted ball cover for “The Frozen Ball of Haarlem” seems to be lost for ever. I have bought a small ball and will knit a replica cover for it – just so I do not forget.

Is this really Knit Graffiti it is quite a lot of fun, a bit challenging, and here in the Netherlands it is freezing

2 Danish Shawls – done and photographed, well one is done, the other still needs to have its 2 colour crochet edge added.

2 beanies for boys – done

Some Photographs – done, but I do wish I had a real live model. My grey mannequin – looks like she has fish skin and that her skin needs lots of moisturiser, my black mannequin doesn’t have proper shoulders, although she does looks great in hats – as long as the hat is not also black.

I have added 3 pieces to Ravelry and done some work on the setup of the Etsy shops.

And I am working on Carbon Footprint knitted Bag pattern – maybe one of my ball covers should be carbon footprints???

No I might just stick to Black and White.

I have been mulling over what to do now – and then I checked that WIP list and horrors I still have:

1. IOU’s for 2 pairs of red socks – I will aim for birthdays I think – August and December 2010. Or maybe I will look out for some Peter Blake Lucky red socks on Trade Me instead. BUT that would mean I have still never created a pair of socks. I will have to consider that some more.

2. 2 hats (the slouchy ones I created for Christmas were not quite right for the 12 and 13 year olds), so I am creating more normal beanie hats for the boys – one blue and one green. I started while they were still here – but put it to one side due to an interesting knit art graffiti piece that just took over my activities for a week. Warming the Frozen Balls of Haarlem.

3. I have not looked at the 3 Danish shawls

4. I have finished 2 Moebius scarves – 2 to go.

5. 4 capes to add fastenings etc – the knitting is finished and no ends to do.

6. 1 cardigan to be created / completed, the colours were chosen in April, and I started knitting it then – but it is too stripey in design as per request, and I am not in love with it. I love the colours, I am going to use intarsia or maybe some simple fair isle on this so that it is not a striped cardigan. I am not a good Fair Isle technician – I have very rarely used the technique, so must get over the phobia – so I think it will have to be Fair Isle. Must get it done before April 2010 – as I have had this work in progress for 1 year on 15th April.

BUT I have knitted a scarf for Anna – and you guessed it it has gone and I don’t have a picture. Anna likes dark red – so the scarf is dark red but with short sections of green, brown and even a pink colour all part of the dark red yarn. The yarn was Markoma, Colour 607. I knitted the scarf in k3, p3 rib, without a fringe as Anna is not a fringe person.

I have also created a little cape, poncho or schoncho (schoncho is small poncho for want of a better word). I Used Regia Hand-dye effect yarn (colour 6556) knitted together with a strand of Linie 253 – Hommage in colour 12. Hommage is 76% Kid Mohair. The increases were done using the hyperbolic plane method – that is I increased every 30 stitches on every single row after the neck band. It has great movement, and is light, soft and sexy and quite suitable for a Valentine.

And then there is the pattern and graph for the Carbon Footprint Bag