Traveling nests

Post for week of 3/11:

This past week along with over break was spent reworking my second draft of my thesis (4 hours) and crocheting nests ( about 36+ hours). I crocheted approximately 7 nests so far that rang in size and shape, and experimented with 3 different yarns. Initially starting I was trying to vary the size, but I wasn't seeing a large difference between the first three so then I started to add holes and play with the form until I got one really massive (about 3.5 ft in height) nest. I wanted to play with the difference in materials and how the crochet knots looked from each yarn. Two of the yarns are furry and organic looking, but colorfully striped (with greens and the other beige-blue). The third one was a much thicker yarn that is more rope like, but a natural off white-cream color with very thin and tiny dark strands mixed in. I thought that I was going to only use one of the colors, but I like them all so much that I think I will use all of them, and possibly add one more yarn type (but not totally decided).

Right now the nest kind of just hang, but I plan to use sticks to fill them, stretch them, and manipulate their forms. Janie suggested that I think of other things that I could fill the nests with. I made these nests as a representation of comfort and joy. I used the yarn as a symbol for my love of knitting and crocheting - I find comfort in that repetitive action and the texture of the yarn flowing through my fingers.

When I think of other things to fill them with, I think of possibly books, or tea bags, drawing materials, or clothing... things that remind me of sitting in my bed where my own little space is. I think the reason I initially imagined sticks though was because of the comfort I feel being in the woods, walking through trails. When I first envisioned these nest, they were hanging from the tree branches of the woods behind my old house. I liked the way that although they are all crocheted in similar forms of the weaver bird's nest, they all seemed to have their own character from the way the sticks poked out of them and stretched them. I definitely want to play with what to put in them, but I am still currently leaning towards the sticks.

As far as the other nests go, I ordered more yarn and want to create another large crocheted nest out of the blue-beige yarn (the big one now is green). I also am continuing to work on three other nests simultaneously- the sheets one, the mirror one, and a new one with clothing. This one speaks to how I feel about a relationship I just ended. I am using the clothing of the boy I was seeing for about two years to layer the outside. I plan to shred and rip the clothing into strips to create a layered ruffle texture on the outside (or perhaps braid the strips). I think this will help break up the colors of the clothes rather than just laying them on the outside as a whole. The inside however, will be filled with nails all pointing inwards. I will do this by creating the structure first and then poking the nails through the structure.

This nest will hang in the corner crevasse of my wall near the head of my bed. I will need to probably build some sort of two walled right angel structure though to build this onto for transportation purposes. If anyone has any suggestions... I am highly open to some! :)

I will add pictures very soon! This is all probably hard to imagine via written text.