In search of a brain...umm, I mean yarn.

I'm sitting here with my mouth on fire, lips tingling from the spicy buffalo wings I just ingested. I figured while I was between wings, I'd quickly jot down a blog post. Allowing sufficient time for the burn to abate might be considered an added incentive, but in truth, I figured it's been awhile since I updated the blog. (Let's blame the weather and the holidays for that, shall we?) Why am I eating spicy buffalo wings at 8:25 pm on a Wednesday evening? Because I just got home from 'some things looming' where I was working in the loom room sampling yarn.

I've been looking for soft, inexpensive but nice, chunky, 2 ply yarn to weave with. Why soft, inexpensive but nice, chunky, 2 ply yarn? Because I want a yarn has a low epi (ends per inch or the amount of lengthwise threads that fit into an inch, for the non-weavers out there). I could go into the reasons why, but for now, that's secondary to the task at hand. It's an uninteresting pursuit, I know, and yet, I sit here and write all about it, anyway. I'd even bet that there's plenty of folks out there who could recommend exactly the yarn I need. (Feel free!)

I usually work with cottons, rayons, linens, silks, copper wire, and blends thereof, that are rather thin, as in fingering weight or thinner, for you knitters out there. Most of my pictoral weavings are made up with various mill ends, and of varying textures. My warp is always perle cotton, sometimes mixed with other things, but mostly, it's just the vehicle for the imagery, so it doesn't have to be luxurious or glamorous, since it hides in the background, merely providing the structure to the cloth. Utilizing tapestry and lace techniques, I alternate transparent areas with opaque. So, apparently, I've gotten rather out of practice when it comes to threading my loom in anything but a straight 1-2-3-4 draw with fuzzy, fluffy yarn. You see, I only need four shafts threaded in the most basic of ways to accomplish my work. (That's my excuse and I'm sticking with it).

Want to know where to get good mill ends? I could possibly recommend a few places. Want to buy perle cotton in bulk? I have a few sources, some I don't use anymore, yet I could probably tell someone where to look. Soft, inexpensive but nice, chunky, 2 ply yarn? Apparently, I have no clue. Hence my quest.

Detail, Kaliedscopic Daydreams, (c) 2009

melanie ritter mitchell

No stone is going unturned. Along the many paths I've searched, I've found wool yarn that's definitely nice, and uh, well, somewhat thicker, with a recommended epi of 10, so that fits, sort-of. But I'm not yet convinced it's all that soft. I'll work it up tomorrow, wash it and brush it, and see what I've got, but until then, I'm just hoping I'll end up surprised. I've found soft, 2-ply wool yarn, but it's kind of thin, and I'm looking for bulk. The other day while on my hunt, I had a lovely phone conversation with the Master Weaver at Halcyon yarn and learned a few things that 15 years of weaving never taught me, but still no real satisfactory answer. I've even checked out the yarn section of the mega-monster-craft store. Which is what I was working with tonight. Surprisingly it wasn't all that bad, but I completely forgot the rule of sampling before I sample. In other words, I should have made a small swatch, before working it up into full length test-scarf. Good thing it only took me three and a half hours to set up, weave, and cut off the project. I might be more depressed than I already am. I would have needed to add an entire bag of Hershey's chocolate nuggets to my buffalo wing dinner. (Chicken Molé anyone?)


Apparently I'm brain dead, because I know better. And it pains me to admit to such a mistake, out loud, all over the world wide web. But hey, I made a very nice balanced plain weave. Not too much of the weft showing. Not too much of the warp. If I were weaving a saddle blanket, I'd be extremely proud of myself right about now instead of writing a confession to the world. I know what I did wrong. Even understanding my mistake doesn't take the sting from this perfectionist's heart. So tomorrow, I will make sure the brain is fueled up, neurons firing, before I face my loom again. And I will continue my quest for soft, inexpensive but nice, chunky 2 ply yarn, because at this point, it's no longer about the project at hand. It's all about the conquering the quest. Oh and hey, I can feel my lips again. Guess I can go finish my dinner now.

~Melanie

This semester's projects:

It's my last semester of school, so why should it be any different from the others? Well, if anything, it IS more enjoyable if for no other reason than I only have fibers classes and I LOVE what I do.

Here's what's in the project queue:

For Non-loom, I'm wrapping black bath towels with copper wire. It's part of an on-going series called "Metamorphosis." The concept is to take common items that are used for every day activities and re-purpose them. Whether or not others think they're "beautimous" or not, I cannot say, but I'm enjoying the project. I made two several years ago, one hung in a show this past summer. But the Mr. said I wasn't allowed to make any more of these sculptures unless I could find a way to wrap the fabrics without his help. He held the variable speed drill for me. Hours and hours of wrapping hundreds of strips of cloth. So, I figured out how to use my spinning wheel. Tons of fun. Here's a couple of pics from the first two in the series:


This was the first sculpture, Metamorphosis I. It's made out of wrapped Upholstery fabric. I was imagining stripping a couch down to nothing while I made it.

The next in the series is made from dyed and wrapped T-shirt material. This is the one that hung in a show:


This is me and Eeyore standing next to it. I was told people were touching it on the sly. Every time I went in, the piece was misshapen and the info desk helper told me the why. Now, for a fibers artists, that's a high compliment! I always want my work to look so inviting and playful that people just have to touch it. Or they want to feel it because they want to know what it is made of.

They are purposefully vessel shape referring to the scripture where we are all "jars of clay." The concept is primarily that of transformation when we invite Jesus into our lives and make him Lord. Our minds, thoughts, actions, are completely re-shaped by the Holy Spirit if we allow. We go from something recognizable (i.e. a t-shirt, bath towel, sofa, etc) to the world as something completely different, (the finished sculpture) through God's transforming power. It's abstract, I know, but I kind of think the whole concept of our spirit becoming alive through Christ is rather abstract as well, else why would Nicodemus question what Jesus meant by being "born again?" (John 3:4)

I'm not sure how my next piece will turn out. It's beginning to cost me a fortune. ha ha. Who knew wire could be so expensive!

For Weaving, I'm finishing up my Fatherless series.



I made the second of the series last semester (no pictures of it yet), and at the moment, I'm about to warp my loom at home with the third in the series. The figures are supposed to be somewhat abstract. I purposefully left them featureless, and humanoid looking for several reasons. The child is supposed to be gender-neutral. I want the viewer to be able to insert themselves into the picture. Secondly, the weaving is made from a technique called Spanish Lace. It's rather delicate looking in person. There is supposed to be this feeling of unraveling or disintegration. A normal "portrait" would have all of the features drawn in and be more realistic. The colors are predominantly mono-chromatic because the subject is supposed to be rather bleak.

Why Fatherless? It speaks about two conditions, our physical condition and our spiritual condition. On a surface level, I'm attempting to make a social commentary about our single parent society. Don't get me wrong, if you're a single parent, it's a tough job. But there's this whole mentality in society that says "Dads aren't important." Or if a Dad is portrayed in the Media, he's a doofus or an idiot. Look at the Fathers in Rug Rats, or Jimmy Neutron. Look at the Fathers in any sit-com. When did Dad's become so unimportant? Then you have weekend dads, or those Dad's who are just such good dads they drive all the way to such-and-such a place to get their kids to and from school, and spend a whopping 9 hours a week with their daughter, leaving behind the other daughter because "she's too young yet." So Dad is there, but not there...that's why the portrait is without detail, incomplete. I am hoping to depict an incomplete relationship.

The second, deeper meaning is more spiritual. It is really speaking about the time in my life where, spiritually speaking, I was Fatherless. I ran around waiting for God to smite me with his angry discipline for all the things I did wrong. My relationship with God was like these weavings, fragile, and without detail. Somewhere in my mid-twenties, I came to realize that He loved me. I can't even put into words that discovery. It's one thing to know with my head I'm loved, but its a whole other thing to understand and feel it in my heart that I am treasured, valuable, made this way on purpose for a purpose, "altogether beautiful, there is no flaw in you," "dark but lovely." My responses to Him became less religious (doing it for the sake of being "good" or "right") which failed all the time, to wanting, no deeply desiring to follow his ways because I wanted to express my love back. A love response. When I was going through this time in my life, I began to draw. Those sketches led me back to school as I sensed God wanted me to get them out to the world. So when I went back to school, I ended up starting at the beginning of my sketchbook. My earliest sketches were titled "My Abba, My Daddy." I had a great father, the best Daddy a little girl could ever be given. When I realized that my Abba was even better, well, I just still have trouble fathoming it sometimes. But I felt that before I could depict what the relationship could look like, I had to show what our current condition is.

Each piece is a little more unraveled, a little more unwoven, a little more fragile. It's been very frightening to be so inexperienced as an artist and to try and replicate the same weaving three times.

My last weaving project is not as deep. I'm merely making a very large abstract with Spanish lace and plain weave. Mostly, I'm doing it to work out a few ideas before trying to put imagery into it. Can I make it sculptural? How much work is it to make a gianormous weaving (I'm about to find out!)

I've woven some functional pieces in between, a shawl, a scarf, stuff that I do for fun and enjoyment. Not that my artwork isn't fun, it's just more "work." I have to think, plan, and design more, and sometimes after all that, it doesn't turn out well at all. My functional pieces give me satisfaction that they can be used and enjoyed. My non-functional serve as my therapy.

Hopefully, I'll have pictures later. I'll have to go bug my sister. She's the photographer for the two above Metamorphosis pieces. She has amazing talent, and took my entire portfolio last year. Well, I've made a few more things since then, so it might be time for another mega-photo session. Here's hoping it's not so cold and breezy this time. ;-)