Monday, September 22, 2014

Are You My Mummy? - Art Yarn Challenge

*Contains slight spoilers for Doctor Who (2005 relaunch), season 1, episodes 9 and 10*

I was challenged by a dear customer to spin a very specific Doctor Who art yarn, comprising the episodes "The Empty Child" and "The Doctor Dances" from the first season of the 2005 TV show.
The Doctor and Rose find themselves in 1941 during the London Blitz, Rose hears a child calling for his mummy and goes after him, only to be tangled up in the rope of a barrage balloon. She clings on, a Union Jack prominently on her shirt, and is rescued by Captain Jack Harkness. The child reappears again and again, wearing a gas mask, asking everyone "are you my mummy?" and shouting "muuummmy, muuuuummmmy" all over the place.
Now, I don't want to retell the whole story here - if you know it already you will understand my explanations about the add-ins, and if you don't know it I don't want to spoil it for you completely.

When my customer challenged me to spin this yarn, I was instantly excited. I searched for charms and other things to spin in, but it became clear very quickly that I would have to substitute some things, and make others myself. I chose a space rocket to represent the space ship of Captain Jack Harkness (though it looks very differently) and the barrage balloons (since the form is somewhat similar). Not a perfect substitute, but working. I couldn't find any gas mask charms small enough to fit in the orifice of my spinning wheel, so I had to figure out how to make some from polymer clay. They are a bit ugly, and also not perfect, but the best I could manage, and I think they are recognizable. I made five, as it's not only the child "wearing" a gas mask.



Now for the other charms: I found some Union Jacks way back, and used one of them in this yarn, representing Rose's shirt. I used apples and teacups for the representation of the loaded tables Nancy and the children plunder, a Big Ben charm as that is where Captain Jack Harkness parks his (invisible) space ship, a telephone charm as the empty child repeatedly calls to ask for his mummy, a clock face charm because Rose and Jack flirt in front of the Big Ben clock face, and a handmade TARDIS charm the reason of which should be obvious ;-)


I chose blue, black and grey fibres, mostly because these are the colours that come to my mind whenever I think of the episodes in question. I think it might be not exactly right, there are lots of scenes in brown and yellowish tones also (which I realized when I looked at pictures again), but it seemed the right way to go anyway, and I think these tones predominate the beginning of the episode and the scenes outside. Oh, and I added lots of sparkling copper angelina to represent the nanogenes.





 The yarn is 175 m (191 yards) and 126 g (4,44 oz)


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