ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

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 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 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

Maybe the snow, and the cold is really getting to me (us) now.

Last Sunday, John and the camera, me and 3 of my remaining scarves, and a threaded needle went out into our park to a group of 3 trees that we had decided needed to be warmer. All the scarves were too narrow to be attached to the chosen three – so we walked around the park and found a slender young tree and I sewed a scarf lengthwise to it. The tree had looked really cold – like really really cold. It looks cosy now and not at all startled by this new event.

What else should a knitting nutter, designer and sometimes artist do but arrange for a tree to be warm and nutured and coloured somehow.

I don’t know that this is knitted graffiti – but it was fun, and very odd. One young couple came to check on us and seemed quite happy that the tree was now warmer. They hail from Australia and live virtually around the corner from us. The locals (I am presuming Dutch) just walked by.

I did ask my very odd friends and family if I should go and retrieve the scarf before I am locked up somewhere dark and horrid – unanimously the answer was no.

So bowing to public pressure the tree still has the scarf on it and it looks great.

I have been back to talk to my tree – you can see how our relationship has changed – now it my tree, and I can tell you that the dogs consider a tree wearing a fashion scarf unusual. How do I know this – the snow around the tree is pristine white – no yellow snow here.

But of course this scarf is free for the taking by anyone who wishes it. Just like those that I hung on the railing outside our little steeg.

Just how many ways can one keep neck and shoulders warm – That is the question. It is an important question here in the depth of winter in the Netherlands. These are all patterns to come.

1. Black and white Neck warmer

2. Cream wool / mohair Neck warmer

3. Mohair varigated moebius scarf – as head and neck warmer

4.Oatmeal Shoulder Warmer Cowl/Poncho in Rowan Kid Classic

Thank you to Cat Bordhi and “A Treasury of Magical Knitting” as today I have begun my first Moebius Scarf using the Moebius Cast on and knitting magically from that. Yes I am knitting from the spine or centre line out and yes I am magically knitting as described in the book.

I have owned this book for about 2 years and I am only now testing the process. What took me so long? It is fun and it is so easy and I am not going to explain the technique. Buy the book or borrow it from your local library.

I shall take this to my Stitch ‘n Bitch group this evening – I am certain that they will have, or some of them will have already created a Moebius Scarf.

Some of us are just slow at picking up new ideas and running with them. My mind is going nuts with how I might use what I have learned today.

One can do wonders with an extensive stash of yarns. I do not an extensive stash here in the Netherlands, although I am trying to fix that situation. Some of my yarn from New Zealand has founds its way to me and I have been able to purchase new yarns that have never been available to me except over the net.

So some of the stuff I am creating is a bit different – I am making pieces for a colder climate, pieces that are safe as well as gorgeous to wear when cycling (seeing as I am in the Netherlands), and a dress and a felted Jacket for exhibition in New Zealand. I have also been playing with the Hyperbolic Plane – increases in a scarf, as well working on the Moebius scarf and the Magic Cast On.

On our holiday in Denmark, in August, we were taken to the Old Town (Den Gamle By), by Anne and Michelle where I discovered (or rediscovered) the Danish shawl – and I have made 4 so far – just to see how they work. I have played with the shape and number of Yarn Over increases to see how I can modernise it as the original is wrapped around at the waist and tied at the front which is absolutely charming, but not too modern looking.

The Danish Shawl is not a true triangle – The long edge is curved, which makes it sit well over the shoulders.

The first one I started at the point and increased only on the sides – and of course, as I knew it would – it created a true triangle. I knitted it in gorgeous purples/blues in SandnesGarn (from Norway), yarns that I purchased in the north of Denmark. That was for Natasha

I then looked for a pattern and found the Osark shawl – and have been playing with that. My first attempt is not even worthy of a photo, the shape looked like a salmon steak – not the colour – but the resulting shape was too long and not wide enough. It will be unraveled at some time. But it gave me a starting point.

My next was okay, I have not added the 2 colour crochet edging as yet. I used a grey/fawn 100 % natural yarn with a variegated New Zealand yarn from Manukau Knitting Mills.

The latest shawl / scarf I have created had increases – by single Yarn Overs at the 2 side edges as well as up the middle and has been knitted with a variety of 4 ply yarns which has included sock yarn, Rowan kidsilk haze, Rowan 4 ply Botany and some other odd scraps. The bell ruffle edge I used is from a pattern by Jane Sowerby. I love the resulting shawl/scarf and will create fingerless gloves to go with it. (That means double pointed needles – very scary !!).

I have aready created the hat using the same yarns last winter.

It is amazing what knitting opportunities there are when you live in the Northern Climes as opposed to New Zealand.

A pattern will be created.

I have struggled with my creations since I arrived in the Netherlands and apart from the lack of a huge range of yarns I have not had a “body” to test shapes and flow of any of the pieces I have been working on. In New Zealand I had access to a torso as well as my daughter who has been a very patient model all her life.

Today I have fixed that – I purchased not one but two torso’s from a 2nd hand clothing shop which is closing down here in Haarlem.

One – all black with minimal facial features and no arm sections – and the headless wonder but with the upper arms. The purples triangular (but not Danish shawl style) scarf/shawl on my black model is now completed and has gone to Natasha.

I carried the grey torso with upper arms, under my arm, I took the head off the black one and put torso into my trolley upside down and the head rested inside the body – sort of and then proceeded home with them. I tried not to check too hard – but I think some tourists may have taken photos of me marching across the Grote Markt (big square) with my unusal purchases.

I can understand the desire to photograph such sights. I have twice seen a lady riding her bicycle with a mannequin leg in each of her saddle bags. So looking at her from behind there are 2 legs in the air and a body and head facing the other way between them. Do I ever see her when I have my camera out – Nooooo way. Darn.