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)

Eleven. Doctor Who Inspired Yarns and Mitts

I wrote about shrinking TARDISes a while back, and the plan to spin an art yarn inspired by Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor. My customer decided against a yarn full of TARDISes and asked me to incorporate charms relating to the eleventh Doctor and London/England in general, and only one TARDIS.

I did both, as I was so curious myself how the yarn would turn out and how the TARDISes would look in it that I spun an all-TARDIS yarn before all the charms arrived for the custom order. Here are both of them:

Raggedy Doctor

Eleven

This one contains one shrinky dink TARDIS, and one of each of the following charms: Cowboy hat, cup of tea, teabag, apple, Union Jack, double decker bus, Big Ben, vampire teeth, soccer bead, snowflake, whale, angel wing.

Now look what my customer Jane made from the second yarn: Eleventh Doctor Mitts!

Aren't they wonderful? Thank you for sharing these pictures, Jane! :-)

How to make a wearable TARDIS real quick

As Whovians around the world know, Saturday is the big day - the day the Doctor turns 50, although he is technically nearly a thounsand years old, of course. Depending on which incarnation, which current time and which wibbly wobbly stuff you're adding to the sum, or something like that. Anyway - my beloved husband secured us some tickets for the big show in the local cinema and I have been wondering what to wear. I thought of spinning and knitting something wearable for the occasion, but there is not enough time. Also, alas, TARDIS blue is not really my colour. This morning I had a sudden inspiration, though, and I am going to show you what I did.

Here's a list of what I used

• one (piece of) elder branch or any other wood with a soft core
• a saw
• a knife
• fine sandpaper
• acrylic paint in blue and white
• brushes
• a very thin metal knitting needle or something similar
• something you can stick the knitting needle in (a flower pot filled with soil will work)
• wire - silver plated or what you like
• a white glass bead
• wire bending equipment

I took an elder branch and sawed off a piece of about 4 cm in length. You can use any other wood with a soft core, which will be essential later on.I removed the bark with a carving knife and I sandpapered the whole thing, wiped it with a wet cloth, and let it dry.
I stuck it onto the knitting needle to make a hole and to be able to paint the whole thing in one go.

I painted the TARDIS-to-be with blue acrylic paint and stuck the knitting needle into my incense holder / fragrance lamp thingy. A flower pot should  also work, or just stick the knitting needle in the grass outside if the weather is good.

I waited about 50 minutes for the paint to dry, but I guess that depends on paint brand, room temperature and other things, so just make sure the paint is completely dry. You don't want the white paint to merge with the blue.

When the blue paint had dried completely, I painted the windows and the sign on the door with white acrylic paint. My only good and fine brush was sticky and disgusting, so I had to use a fat one which was also not the best choice overall, so the windows are a bit blotchy. It looks okay from a distance, but a little raw when you look too closely.



Then you can also mess the whole thing up by spraying on clear coat, not shaking the can for long enough and ending up with some kind of snowy surface... I don't recommend this! I'll go through with the plan, though.



Now for the wire stuff - the thing needs a hook or something, so it can be worn around the neck, dangled from a purse or displayed otherwise.

I chose a white glass bead with a silver core to go on top, as the TARDIS light. The wire I used was 0.8 mm and I tried to make the bottom piece nice and flat, so the TARDIS can even stand on her own.

I think the whole process took only about half an hour of active time, plus some time to let the paint dry. Maybe I'll make another TARDIS charm as this one really is kind of snowy on the surface due to the clear coat incident... I'd probably make the next one a little less tall, as the proportions don't seem ideal.

If you try this, please drop me a line and a link, I'd love to see yours! :-)

Time is running

...and Halloween is only one month away. I love spinning Halloween art yarns, but somehow I always start too late. Also, August and September have been incredibly busy the last few years. This is why I have only a few themed yarns, not all of which are listed yet. I'll try my best to put them in the shop over the next few days so they will arrive in time for a Halloween knitting party - or a Halloween party you just take your knitting to ;-)

Bats and Pumpkins

This one features the traditional colours and also bat charms and pumpkin charms. It's 168 m / 112 g

Gotham Night

 This one is already listed, you can read about the details here.

Also, there are these two - not Halloween yarns as such, but the colours fit the theme somewhat and I'd like to show them because I like them a lot :-)

Gallifrey

This one features hand dyed bluefaced leicester wool and silk as well as merino wool - and semi-precious stones (fiery red agate, carnelian, and citrine) strung onto a shiny orange thread. 251 m / 113 g

Friends of Slytherin

 

 This is one of my recent favourites - I absolutely love the snake charms. I've been meaning to spin another Slytherin yarn for a long time now, but it took me a while to find suitable add-ins. This art yarn is sparkly (silver angelina) and features wild silk, alpaca, linen and merino wool. Also, I spun in silk fabric strips and beads. 112 m / 95 g

Silence in the Library

Let me introduce one of my latest creations - another Doctor Who yarn, inspired by one of my favourite episodes. Even from one of my favourite favourite episodes, as I like so many of them a lot ;-)

For those of you who don't know Doctor Who or haven't watched a lot of it yet, let me quote the person we are introduced to in this espisode: SPOILERS! (not many, but read on at your own risk)

The colours of the yarn were inspired by the library itself: brown shelves and furniture, with late sunlight falling in (represented by coppery angelina). I spun in silver book charms to represent the actual books (of course), also known as the forests of the Vashta Nerada. I added six strips of white silk fabric to represent the space suits of River Song and her team. Each of the silk strips is accompanied by one or two large green glass beads which stand for the green light of the communicators which are located at the collars of the suits - and which, as we know, tend to Data Ghost, resulting in Ms. Evangelista repeating "Ice cream, ice cream" in the end.

This yarn hasn't made it to the shop yet, but I hope to list it this week, along with some other new ones. Aquamenti (Harry Potter inspired) and Praios (from the RPG system The Dark Eye) are already up for sale, and then there are others, like Nemo, Thank You For The Fish, and Black Widow, which will be listed shortly.

It is good to be back :-)

Don't Blink

I might have mentioned before that I am a huge fan of Doctor Who. One of my favourite episodes is "Blink" and I've been wanting to spin a weeping angels yarn for a while now. Some time between my exams I went looking for some angel wing charms on ebay and found really beautiful ones - enough for two yarns. So here they are, both inspired by the same episode and the same creatures.

The Weeping Angels

Wonderfully soft merino wool of natural grey is combined with white organza ribbons, frosted white glass beads with a silver core, and silver angel wings. I plied the yarn with silver thread, giving it a wavy texture. 124 m, 116 g.

The Angels Have the Phone Box

"They have taken the blue box haven’t they? The angels have the phone box." One of my favourite quotes, and not only mine, as one of the characters in the episode refers to this with the following: ""The angels have the phonebox," that's my favourite, I've got that on a T-shirt." (There are indeed T-Shirts you can buy, with this quote - I've been thinking about that ;-)).

The yarn has the same add-ins as the one above (I call them the angel ingredients now), but the texture is different, and I used merino wool and linen fibre in different shades of blue, as well as white bamboo flakes. 131 m, 107 g.

If you don't know Doctor Who and I got you interested, "Blink" is one of the episodes you can actually watch without having to know any of the characters or background story - though I'd say, start from the first episode of the new series which was relaunched in 2005 and watch all of it - it's one of the best shows at the moment in my opinion :-)