Bombs Away!
By TwistieIt’s part graffiti, part Monty Python’s Hell’s Grannies, and all whimsical fun. What is it? It’s yarnbombing!
So what is it, exactly? Well… it’s (usually) unauthorized public installations of knitted and/or crocheted items. In practice, it looks a lot like this:
The installation lasted about one day in Vancouver’s Chinatown, but the picture will make me smile for a long, long time to come.
But this isn’t just being done by our Canadian fiends, oh no it’s not. It’s being done all over the place.
For instance, the Twisted Knitters of Herefordshire bombed a local cheese shop with knitted mice, and just a few nights ago put a knitted poppy wreath on a war memorial statue.
A really great project that brought us together even with our varied opinions about the subject of war & conflict.
Or how about this wonderful project by Juniper Place yarns where scarves were distributed in the dead of night?
My vision was that people would come to town on Saturday and see that the “scarf fairies” had come in the night (you know, like Santa and the Tooth Fairy, to name a few)!
As she and her partner in crime draped scarves over railings and parking meters, people started coming along and taking the scarves, just as they’d hoped. By morning, not one scarf was left.
Sometimes it even has official blessings, like this project where the city of Denver, CO hired the Ladies Fancywork Society to install crocheted flowers in a chain link fence.
I don’t know about any of you, but I’m finding myself wanting to expand on this idea. Why should the knitters have all the fun? Why not a bobbin lace cover on a traffic cone? Why not polymer clay building blocks around construction sites? Why not quilted parking meter cozies? Why not Teddy bears in the arms of statues in the park? As long as it’s easily removable, it fits. Encourage people to take your art with them, and add to the whimsey of the day for passers-by.
Yarnbombing may be my favorite idea to come along in a long, long, long time.
November 19th, 2010 at 4:20 pm
Hello Twistie, do you know «elf socks» ??
You knit tiny socks with leftover yarn (they have to be tied one to another) and you put them unauthorizedly in tree branches. You then take a picture and send it on your blog, plus to various businesses know to cause a lot of pollution.
I heard about that a couple of months ago from my aunt who is a knitting maniac.
November 19th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
@dominique: No I hadn’t heard of that, but it sounds cool, too.
November 19th, 2010 at 6:58 pm
Oh! Some people do that to trees here in Philly. I love it–it looks like something out of The Lorax.
November 20th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
I love people so much sometimes!
(A yarn shop in my town has a big knitted tree-cozy as their sign out front. It’s made me giggle ever since they first put it up–but knitted “vandalism”? Love it even more!)