Mittenfest 2023

“Community Quilt” or “Cozy Curiosities” – An original work commissioned by 3CDC

Mittenfest 2023 was originally dreamt up as a way for people to socially distance during the COVID-19 pandemic by utilizing the spacious accommodations of Washington Park in Cincinnati, Ohio during February. As the event moved into 2023 it transformed into a beer festival, featuring nearly a dozen different breweries with beers on tap. The Bombshells of Cincinnati, a group of female knitters and crocheters who practice yarn bombing, took part in the 2022 event by wrapping more than 20 different trees with scarves, giant stuffed arms with mittens, various flowers, eyeballs, and butterflies as well as other characters and scenes.

However the cold temperatures during installation in 2022 left the Bombshells with cold feet for the 2023 event, so they partnered with me as part of our first official collaboration. Jen Edwards of the Bombshells said to me while planning, “we’ll make whatever you want, we just don’t want to have to install any of it,” again referring to the cold temperatures during the previous year’s install.

I took the role of lead artist on this project for 2023 and sought out to develop a yarn concept for installation around The Porch, a bar and gathering space within Washington Park, with the guidance of 3CDC who manages the park. I chose to really lean into the concept of Mittenfest with the thought of, “we’re having fun anyway despite the cold temperatures,” as a forefront guiding principle. I created a series of renderings which can be found here.

To fight the cold, initially I wanted to create three igloo-like alcove structures which would be completely covered in granny squares, per Jen’s suggestion, as a skin which would act as a wind-blocking barrier during the winter weeks of install. However, some math quickly made us realize this was far too large of a space to completely cover the walls and ceilings with knitted or crocheted elements, so we pivoted to covering only one large alcove with squares, covering the walls only and using a checkerboard pattern that utilized a square in every other hole.

To add to the psychologically warming effect we decided to re-use some suns the Bombshells had created for a previous install to cover the walls of one alcove. Then for the middle alcove I thought having a fireplace made out of yarn would be a great way to have people use their imaginations to stay warm. And what is a fireplace without a chandelier, so we added a crocheted chandelier to the list.

A huge part of the event was gathering enough of these “granny squares” to be able to assemble the piece I wanted to create at the scale I wanted to obtain. A quick bit of math told me I needed 1,200 of the 7″ granny squares to cover the outside of the alcove designated for that use. So, we sent out the call into the community as well as to various news stations asking for granny squares of any color or variety so long as they meet the size requirement of 6.5″-7″ square. People were able to create them at their leisure and drop them off at several locations.

Anticipating that this was a huge ask, we told the community we needed 1,600 squares and anticipated that we would fall short closer to our real goal. However, we actually ended up with quite a lot more than 1,600 squares, and using the extra squares I was able to add another wall to the central alcove – something I had not anticipated being possible after the project was underway. Even after that addition we still had lots of squares leftover which did not make it on to the piece. Some squares were the wrong sizes or shapes, but in some cases I just didn’t have space allotted in the installation for all the squares which were created!

The support from friends, family and the community was both overwhelming and humbling.

For this reason I chose to name the piece “Community Quilt” though signage chosen by 3CDC and Washington Park named the whole month-long install “Cozy Curiosities” due to yarn being present and the reference to Mittenfest at the end of the installation’s life.

The piece ultimately stayed up for just over a month mostly during February 2023. Installation began on January 15 and ended January 30, and the piece remained up through the weekend of March 5. Mittenfest occurred at the end of February as an apex to the attraction of the month-long installation drawing people to Washington Park.

Installation time:
Two weeks, one boom lift, lots of hot coco

Total duration including install:
About seven weeks

Removal time:
Four days

Walkthrough of the piece

This is before completion as some loose elements are visible in the red alcove and the fireplace has not yet been placed.

The fireplace was initially placed under the pavilion to preserve its life.

Below are photos from during the event.

Press coverage from Spectrum News!

Weather was an issue during installation, as one might expect when installing in January. Below is a video showing the piece the day after the majority of the granny square sections had been hung from the overhead wires but before they had been secured to the ground. It also rained/sleeted the night before so this was a true stress test for the piece. High gusts of cold wind made the job difficult as everything turned into a kite, but it also provided a needed stress test for the piece that allowed for fewer adjustments later during the duration of the time the piece remained installed.

Professional photos taken during setup

A local photographer walked through the area as we were installing the granny squares in the red and orange alcoves and ended up sending over these great pictures. It’s worth noting that these pictures show the piece before the lower edge of the granny squares had been secured properly to the base.

Tour of the squares in the red alcove, taken at night after initial install and before adjustments

Setup Time-Lapse Video:

Renderings and Initial Planning:

My initial ambitions were to cover each of the three alcoves completely in yarn. However, quickly realizing the scale of the spaces I thought, “what if we just cover the first eight vertical feet or so?” More calculations ultimately determined this was just far too many squares to create so this idea was abandoned, but it did result in an interesting concept rendering.

Ultimately we determined that covering just one alcove having a perimeter of about 145′ with five-to-six feet of checkerboard granny squares was a task the Bombshells felt confident they could handle. This was intimidating but exciting, so even with every other square missing the piece would require about 1,200 squares total.