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.

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?

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

Options : With many yarns and colours of course

One beret created with faux fur fibres in gorgeous shades (to be decided on), with a plain wool knitted band. “A Crazy Soft Character top – and simple band”

The other should be a felted one in the wonderful turquoise, deep blue, purple delicious colour range with fancy bits included to make a dramatic statement. I don’t have a pattern for either – but will work from the two I have already created.

Remember many yarns and many colours

My brain (or is it my eyes), is seeing balls everywhere – so I have to concentrate on something sensible like my carbon footprint bag pattern and your two berets and I am glad that you like them both – and that you will go for colour explosions in both with the felted one in a variety of yarns in those rich purples, turquoises and blues.

is the title of a new book on art knit graffiti from Magda Sayeg of KnittaPlease – to be published I believe in 2010. The very idea of this book is what got me so excited and started me viewing my environment with the thought of how could I artistically enhance it however temporarily. And as I have discovered the life of knit art graffiti can be very short indeed.

Now I would never have considered any form of graffiti as being something that I could or would want to do. BUT the adrenlin buzz as far as a buzz of adrenlin can move an older person or two is really exciting. The carrying out of the installation – even planning to check the sizing was just a bit stressful.

Checking the size

On the day when we planned to install our graffiti – it was still daylight – just. We walked to the Grote Markt (town square) with the finished piece, threaded needle ready, scissors in the pocket (foldup ones that cannot dig into your side and cut you and bleed over your art piece). We had already chosen our ball – it was to be number 13 in the beautiful line of 25. When we arrived at the spot another ball beckoned so that became “the ball”. And then the fun started. The blood pressure went up, would people stop us, would they look at us, would they photograph us, would they wrestle us to the ground, would they call the p….?

Nothing happened – it was as normal an activity as any other – it seems. There was just no reaction.

The final step in this process – the wearing of graffiti knitted art by a Frozen Haarlem Ball.

BUT I had made a fundamental error – that is when I was at the Cast Off row on the knitting – where I had used a much much much bigger needle to cast off – it was still toooooo ttttiiiiggghht to get over the ball.

Panic *&(&^%%

Then I did what no knitter would ever do – I snipped the cast off edge in a number of places – see if we could ease (stretch) the knitted art graffiti (hoody maybe) over the ball.

Nope

So we took it off – and went to a local cafe / bar to recover and to have a gluhwein, warm up and work out what to do now. Once the hands and body were warm again – I thought HHmmmm – I had needle, yarn and scissors. So I sat in the bar with my gluhwein – and I unpicked the cast off edge and caught each stitch with the yarn. I stretched it as far as the knitting could stretch and sewed in the end of the yarn.

Back to the Ball

This time it went over – it was a tight fit – but it was always the intention that this ball cover would fit well – and it did. But it was even colder by then – maybe -2 or -3 with a real feel of my fingers are going to get frostbite and fall off and a fear that I will never be able to knit again.

Dressed Ball but no closure

And the ball was really really icy cold – and I still needed to sew the join from the bottom to the middle section. I am too old to hunker down and sew – besides the ground was icy cold as well and covered with snow – the only way was to lie over the ball and stitch from the bottom up. But my hands were so frozen that I could not manipulate the needle and thread and it was impossible to do it with big gloves on.

Common sense prevailed and we left the seam unstitched.

Next morning I went back to maybe stitch the seam, if I had the courage, and there the ball was without its beautiful designer coat.

Another is on the way

This is a delightful way to design and then create a unique shawl as a gift or for yourself using only yarns from your stash. Sort through your yarns and find a group of colours that work together, by tone, or colour group, or contrast – whatever excites your eye when you lay them out together. The yarns should knit up at the same approximate gauge.

Select the needle required for the common weight of yarn. For example – Mainly 8 ply or double knit yarns – use a 4 or 4.5 mm needle.
It is generally not a good idea to use fine lace weight yarn unless you choose to use 2 or 3 strands knitted together to approximate the required weight and for the same reason don’t use bulky yarn if you are knitting mostly in double knit or 8 ply yarns. Having said that some yarns completely out of line with the whole can look very interesting and will not put your shawl out of shape as long as you are judicious about the amount you use and where you choose to include it. And I do do it all the time.

Take your yarns and lay them on the table in order of the quantity that you have – maybe 5 balls colour 1, 3 balls colour 2, 1 ball each of colour 3, 4, and 5, and oddments. Never never discard oddments.

Create a sequence for your yarn amounts like I have done for my listed yarn amounts – Col.1, Col.2, Col.3, oddments; Col.1, Col.2, Col.3, Col.4, oddments; Col.1, Col.2, Col.3, Col.4, Col.5, oddments and back to Col.1 and so on.

For my example I would knit 4 rows of Col.1 and 2 rows of Col.2, 1 row of Col.3, 4, & 5 and knit a row of any group of oddments. If you have lots of oddments – Knit 2 rows each time

Cast On 4 Stitches. Slip 1, K 1, YO k to end – on every row. Continue till it is the right size for you. The Cast off row can be a row of oddments or any of the colours still available at the end. There is more finishing if you use a group of yarns to Cast Off but then you are creating a unique piece.

Add a fringe if you wish.

You do not need as many skeins of each yarn as I have suggested – you can have all part skeins, or oddments, variegated yarns, faux fur – absolutely any yarns as long as they knit at about the same gauge. If you have 25 small amounts of yarn and several skeins of black or dark blue or purple or whatever – You can frame sections of many colours with the solid colour that you have a reasonable amount of. In this type of colour design work – what matters most is that the colours together please your eye. It is important to trust your instinct or response when looking at the colours together.

Go for it, knock ‘em dead with your design skills. It is fun.

We have enjoyed the snow, the stillness, the light, the food, the family, the fun and joy of being together, and skyping Melissa, Tomas and Laurence in New Zealand, and I finished some of my knitting projects in time believe it or not.

While our family were driving from Switzerland to us in Haarlem in the Netherlands on Christmas Eve day – I finished the two hats for the boys – one purple, and one orange. I also went over the huge rug, bed cover, to be snuggled under mohair and faux fur piece to make certain all those ends were gone. And I found some ends of course.

I didn’t start the red socks – so those are IOU’s for JJ and for Morgan.

I did complete a cream cowl for Angelica the day before. It was knitted in 2 strands of Naturally Mist 1 ply Super fine Kid Mohair from New Zealand. It does look fantastic. It was knitted in the round from the neck down with 3 rows purl, 3 rows Knit – and increasing both the stitches and the numbers of rows of purl and knit. The cardigan will have to wait for another time. Angelica is from Chile and has extraordinary skin colour and the cream cowl looks great on her. I think this one might just make it into the patterns to come category as it looks really good.

I didn’t finish the capes and scarves so they are still in my unfinished object pile.

Because of the timing of completion of the hats and cowl I don’t have good photos – just snaps taken at present opening time. They have promised to send good photographs.

JJ is at work, the house is empty, and now I can just knit again – but somehow watching the birds eating the food we have placed outside in the tree I can see from my windows and the snowy scene around it keeps drawing me to it.