ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

The competiton was held by the Compendium Gallery in Devonport, New Zealand in 1992,
The Brief – To Create the Great New Zealand Cloak, My Piece – “Island” When I planned the cloak – I did want to include reference to Maori, the indigenous people of New Zealand, who created wonderful cloaks mostly of a rectangular shape with a woven tie at the shoulders or neck. Their cloaks were woven, usually of a flax fibre. The best and most valuable Maori cloaks included bird feathers, the most striking for me being those created with kiwi feathers. Some were all over feathers attached to the base woven flax cloak. The flax is dyed in a specific mud to get the very dark almost black colour in the work. The flax was woven in intricate geometric designs using the dyed black with the creamy natural fibre and their stories are woven into the designs in the cloaks.

My cloak was created in one piece from the bottom edge to the shoulders. It is an island from the sea to the sky with mountains, sea shore, surf, farm land etc, as best as I could represent a land from the sea. I considered adding a component relating to my own Viking heritage of the sea – but had decided that will be the basis of another cloak in the future.

The black stripe down the sides from the shoulders have linen tassels is to provide that link back to New Zealand Maori whose cloaks were the natural flax creamy colour with black tassels. A feathered cloak would not have tassels. My reference is in reverse – creamy linen tassels on black yarn strip. I called my piece “Island”, because New Zealand is made up a group of islands.

I feel that I created an art piece in the form of a cloak, an absolutely wearable cloak. It sits well and floats from the shoulders. It is light and warm and envelopes one in luxury. When you are wearing it and walk along the shape of it moves in light waves and ripples like the shallows on the sea shore. I am still delighted when I wear the cloak and am always delighted when it is borrowed as it has been many times. This cloak has attended an opera, music festivals, celebratory dinners, and graduations. A perfect piece.

This the link to my earlier story of The Great New Zealand Cloak” competition / exhibition – http://www.connielene.com/the-great-new-zealand-cloak-exhibition

When I created this cloak I decided that I was possibly an artist who knits.

I hope that after looking through the site you will choose to be a fan of my Facebook Page or as it is now on facebook I hope you will choose to like ConnieLeneKnits

You can find me in many places on the net –

My Etsy Shop Unique Boutique Knits for patterns and garments

Crazy but this is my other Etsy Shop Connielene Capes and my unique and unrepeatable knits Capes because I adore cloaks and capes, the others because I cannot tell you exactly how I created them other than the pattern for the style but not the intarsia on them.

And because I managed to create and install a Ball Warmer and really enjoyed the experience and the story World Urban Art – a site still in development – Installation art in the urban environment including Knit Art Graffiti or Yarn bombing.

Our travels in Europe – two oldies from New Zealand exploring the Netherlands, Denmark and Europe as time, money and energy allows.

You can find me on Ravelry here and believe it or not I am also on Twitter here as Connieleneknits

I am a Freelance designer, knitter, lover of colour; lots of colour, Intarsia lover, pattern writer, fashion knit trend follower, Colour and yarn trend follower.

They tell me that I am also artist, graffiti knit artist. I know I am a storyteller, writer, blogger, mother, wife, sister, grandmother, teacher, friend, photographer, and speaker.

My loves are colour, texture, shape, flow, drape, drama, magic, passion and yarn and I hope you enjoy the results.

When I can I do participate in fibre exhibitions, and I have curated two exhibitions with a wonderful artist friend. In 2009 I had a felted jacket in WoolOn at the Alexandra Blossom Festival, and a dress with intarsia of course in the Alpaca Festival in New Zealand.

My Mission is to excite and challenge all knitters, designers and wearers of hand created pieces – to experience more colour in their own knitted pieces and to enjoy the freedom and the magic of wearing such a unique piece because it is created with many colours, passion and with magical yarns

My Major Project with delivery in 2011 is My Intarsia Knitting – Book as yet with no name.

I hope you will be a fan of my Facebook Page or as it is now I hope you will choose to like ConnieLeneKnits on Facebook.

Best Beloved is in Maastricht today armed with my tape measure to enable him to measure a Maastricht ball or maybe two. We had left the tape measure in Haarlem when we tested our white ball warmer a couple of weeks ago. Of course on the day we were there, Best Beloved to work, and me to check out the balls of Maastricht, it was sooo cold, my hands could not have measured a ball accurately at all.

I was excited and maybe just a little horrified as I walked along the road to our rendevous point that bitterly cold day – there were many balls in Maastricht and they were obviously in several sizes. I counted at least 48.

Could there be 48 or so textile and fibre enthusiasts in and around Maastricht who would take up the challenge to create a ball cover for an amazingly different fibre festival event, should we be able organise it. I do hope so.

The measurement of the first ball was phoned in from Maastricht before lunch, and it is only 124cm, at least 36cm smaller than the Haarlem Ball (which was 150 plus my handspan). Less knitting, felting, patchwork, embroidery, crocheting, weaving, basket weaving, textile and fibre work for these balls – so maybe there will be interest from others, just maybe.

Oh no – Measurement been phoned in from Maastricht just before Best Beloved’s 2pm meeting, and the second ball measured across the road from the first, is 142cm and trust me, Best Beloved is not dyslexic.

What is it with these ball creators?

Now we have balls in three sizes and I know there are further balls even smaller in Maastricht. Best Beloved may not be able to measure those on this trip. Generally when work is over it is a race to the next train. The train trip home is 2.5 hours, and I cannot expect more measuring when the journey is so long already. Stopping to measure may mean an additional 1/2 hour between work in Maastricht and home in Haarlem. It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect it. Would it?

So from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I see that

A sphere (from Greek σφαῖρα—sphaira, “globe, ball”) is a perfectly round geometrical object in three-dimensional space, such as the shape of a round ball. Like a circle in three dimensions, a perfect sphere is completely symmetrical around its center, with all points on the surface lying the same distance from the center point. This distance is known as the radius of the sphere. The maximum straight distance through the sphere is known as the diameter of the sphere. It passes through the center and is thus twice the radius.

In higher mathematics, a careful distinction is made between the sphere (a two-dimensional spherical surface embedded in three-dimensional Euclidean space) and the ball (the three-dimensional shape consisting of a sphere and its interior). See the Wikipedia article here

So there we have it

But HOW to knit this spherical object – that is the question?

You need to know the size of your sphere – ball. Mine is 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 am using 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 very temporarily here in Haarlem, and also in Maastricht, so maybe they are everywhere in the Netherlands.

What about a countrywide exhibition of altered environments – “The Town Spheres” exhibition. Calling all knitters, crocheters, textile artists, patchworkers, basket weavers, embroiderers, felters and all others I have not mentioned as yet – to take up their needles and threads, yarns, and looms, and just do this.