ConnieLene – KnitDesigner

I am gobsmacked, my heart is pounding – the news is in: the balls are back. That is the great concrete balls of Haarlem Town Square (Grote Markt) are back. They are not back in their original position as yet, they are sitting and waiting to be repositioned as the road works continue.

So just maybe a yarnbombing, a graffiti art knit installation, urban art piece, yarn storming, street art piece will be able to be installed in Haarlem again.

Did you know that according to Wikipedia yarn bombing is almost exclusively about reclaiming and personalizing sterile or cold public places?

Having said that I do not think that the Haarlem Town Square is a sterile and cold public space. We have had wonderful meals here, fresh mint tea here, greeted Sinter Klaas here, farewelled Sinter Klaas here. We have bought bird food for the birds, partridge for us, and winter truffle, olives, olive oil, flowers, fish and yarn here in this square. We have listened to jazz at the Annual Haarlem Jazz festival as well as at various venues around the square. We have participated in food and wine tastings, been enticed by the idea of the Keukenhof Gardens and so much more.

Can you say that about your town square?

We have crunkled across the snow, taken our bikes through the square (once), welcomed Olympians to the square, participated a couple of times at the local stitch ‘n Bitch at the square. We have eaten kibbeling, frites, stroopwafels, poffertjes but not raw herring in the square. Tried various beers, wines, olives, and breads, in this square. We have spent a couple of days at a medieval village and market in the square.

There is just nothing cold and sterile about this space.

BUT the balls, the great balls of Haarlem, now they were cold.

We checked today and they are not back, the Great Balls of Haarlem, and the road works continue. Not one person (Dutch person) that I have spoken to seems to know if the Balls will return. Surprisingly no non Dutch person has been able to help either.

I am working on a ball warmer design with a company logo for a special ball we have found. We think we could install it on 1st April – April Fools Day. That is the target date but it does depend on completion of a number of little projects that are progressing – so the date could change. We just thought April Fools Day had a great ring to it.

We will keep you posted.

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.

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.

The websites are back up – thank goodness.

I will upload the photographs we took in the rain today. That is the photographs of the Grote Markt (Town Square) of Haarlem in the rain, and no balls for the ball warmers to warm, or to protect from the rain. Hope the photos are okay as it was a dreadful day here.

If you should know where the great balls of Haarlem are please let me know – as you can’t take it (the knowledge) with you.

I have had an offer from Wellington, the capital city of New Zealand, to send one of the Wellington balls to me here in Haarlem. Should these balls be the same size as the Haarlem Balls – I think I should probably send a Ball Warmer or two to Wellington for them instead. The balls are too heavy to send across the world. Nice thought though, bringing a Wellington Ball to Haarlem.

Someone out there has my first ball warmer – here are the photographs.

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?

Yesterday I went to Maastricht with my white, large, ball cover – to test it against one of the many balls in Maastricht. Now I had not seen these balls previously, I didn’t know the size, I didn’t know how public the space was, and I didn’t know just how cold it would be.

When I left home in Haarlem at about 7am, the temperature was -5.1, and that is cold and everything was very white. The flurry of snow we expected had covered everything with white icing. Not thick icing, but just enough for that beautiful look.

Now my ball cover and I have not met much in the last week or so, well, not on a regular basis, and it was still unfinished. But my partner in these activities, my best beloved was to be in Maastricht on business and we arranged to meet after one of his meetings – so he could help with the plan. Which meant I had to knit on the train – and I think I’ll tell about that in another post, because that was an experience.

Now Best Beloved had discovered the balls of Maastricht, well he had eventually noticed the balls on one of his many trips there, as you may remember there has been lots of ball talk in our house of recent times. So the balls drifted to the surface one day and he remembered to tell me there are many such balls in Maastricht and Maastricht is very very cold. Have a look here for a story about a very cold Maastricht

As I walked along the road to our rendevous point – it began to snow and it was frightfully cold.

Snowing, a grey ball being disguised as a snow ball

We met, quickly chose a ball, took off our gloves in readiness, BB to take a photo or a video and me to cover the ball. Just picture it, two over 60’s disguised by many layers of clothing, acting oddly by a long row of very cold balls and without the comfort of darkness.

The spot was at a roundabout – and in the centre of the roundabout is a forest of stars. The stars sit on top of poles of various lengths – the lower ones are easily within reach of a tall person and they are all white and those stars turn on the top of the poles with the breeze. Couldn’t they be a coloured forest of stars?

I digress – In the freezing cold we managed one photo, a video with really bad conversation on it – “look at my cold hands, the cover is too big, it fits better because it goes over easier, but that means it is too big. Are you really recording, don’t you have to have your finger pressing the button, My hands are frozen, look at my hands”.

And then we saw the other balls – further in – and they are big like my Haarlem balls.

No, we didn’t do it. It was just so cold that we did not have the courage or strength to take the ball warmer and try to put it onto one of the bigger balls.

We went had lunch at a place called Ipanema instead. The food was great, coffee okay, the place was warm, lovely and warm – but there was nothing Ipanema’ish about it.

I am reorganising the galleries and I hope that if you like free form intarsia, and some more formal intarsia that you will enjoy viewing this gallery.

 

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

You guessed it – it started to snow at about 9pm, I had completed the increases I had planned, so we considered – should we, or should we not go out and check the knitting against the ball?

Snowing – white knitted ball cover – Cold ball

No choice really – wrapped up warm, hid the ball cover in my bag and went to the Grote Markt (Town Square). It is Friday night, lots of people about, some hardy tourists, and the bars are quite full. Rising panic – What would happen this time? Are they waiting for us? Does everyone know? Does anyone know? Does anyone care?

nah

I lifted the white knit a little dubiously out of my bag (It suddenly seemed like a beacon and very heavy). I had to be calm and behave as though this is just normal – checking knitting against a large stark, solid, and grey stone ball in the middle of Haarlem, in the middle of the night. (well about 10pm), I laid it on the ball – and yes for all you knitters out there, I have increased the right number of stitches – so can now proceed with my hand span of straight ribbed knitting before decreasing. I love my hands, they measure and knit quite well. For this ball warmer I used Yarn Over increases and hoped to see the strong grey solid stone through the holes but it was dark of course so I have no idea as yet whether it will show / shine through the white/creamy/soft/fluffy knitting.

Unfortunately we tried the camera on a night scene setting – so the photos are rubbish.

So I guess we will have to do it again.

Or we will just install it