Leanne is now blogging about yarn bombing, embroidery, and other textiles over at leannneprain.com. Check out the site for details on her upcoming book Strange Material, and learn how to get involved as a contributor.

Photos from early November, taken in Valladolid, Spain.

Did you see that we now have a Get Involved page? I’m placing calls from other yarn bombing groups who need knitters and crocheters to help them with their project. If you want to get involved, check it out, OR if you want to add something to the page, email me through the contact form on this site.

The latest calls include:

Yarn Bomb a Museum in Los Angeles
5″ x 5″ granny squares needed to cover museum facade

Yarn Bomb Los Angeles has been invited cover the entire facade of the Craft and Folk Art Museum in gigantic and mini granny squares.

Please send 5 inch by 5 inch single color granny squares in the following colors: bright orange, white, bright green. or cyan blue

Send to the following address by March 1, 2013:
Yarnbombing Los Angeles
18th Street Arts Center
1653 18th Street #5
Santa Monica, CA 90404

In the package, please include your name, location, and favorite type of stitch, and drop them a line at yarnbombing18(at)gmail(dot)com to let them know that you plan ot contribute.

Further details: http://www.yarnbombinglosangeles.com/call-for-entry.html

Yarn Bombing Kamloops, BC – Canada

The Kamloops Art Gallery, in collaboration with the City of Kamloops and enthusiastic community volunteers, is organizing an interactive project to transform downtown Kamloops into a large scale public art work from August 20th to 24th, 2013.

The KAG will work with knitters, stitchers, crocheters, and fabric artists to create an array of yarn bombed trees on Victoria Street from 1st to 5th Avenues. This project is a community effort filled with public knitting opportunities and workshops, where artists of all skill levels can learn and share techniques while donating their time, talent and yarn to cozy up Victoria Street in 2013.

Yarn bombing, yarn storming, tree cozies , guerrilla, graffiti and urban knitting are all forms of art that employ colourful displays of knitted or crocheted cloth. Yarn bombing is an international public art phenomenon, practiced around the globe.

Contact: Marlaina Buch, Education and Public Programs Coordinator.

Feeling chilly? It went from summer to winter overnight in Vancouver. Out come the sweaters and the long, lingering memories of summer:

In Whistler, BC  a bike was covered with cloudscapes and mountains and trees. Very West Coast – Knitty Gritty! [More information on this project here]

Strangely, Yarn Bombing was featured on the Today Show and they yarn bombed the camera man. Magda Sayeg also makes an appearance. Al Roker has a knitted tie. One of my pieces makes it into the mix. They bomb the set. It is televised mayhem. We may have reached the tipping point:

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Not one, but TWO beer labels are made featuring Yarn Bombing:

This first was photographed by yours truly. This beer is available in limited quantities with this label in the US and Belgium.  [Label photograph: Jeff Christenson. Knitting: Leanne and Mandy]

This second illustration was found via the interwebs. Anyone out there know if it is real? I can’t tell if this was manufactured by the brewery or just a proposed sketch, but I’d love to buy some just for the label:

And, this is the summer that THIS was actually published as a real ad:

The media kills me.

What were your favourite yarn bombs of the summer of 2012?

I’ve been watching the Yarn Bomb Yukon project with great interest. Jessica, Vanessa, and Bree-Ann have dedicated themselves to a variety of public yarn bombing projects, most notably a DC-3 plane at the Yukon Transportation Museum.

While they gear up for their big yarn bombing project on August 11th, they are also yarn bombing other items as well. Behold Lenore the 1969 GMC 4×4 Truck (all images taken from yarnbombyukon.wordpress.com):

Thanks to Diane Bush for sending me this image. This piece was made for international yarn bombing day by local seniors who attached circles to mesh to cover the Sunrise Hospital pedestrian bridge. Local Boy Scouts helped with the hanging of the mural, and the Girl Scouts helped set up refreshments for the Yarn Cutting Ceremony with local County commissioner.

Beautiful.

Just when you think you’ve seen it all, someone goes and surprises you…. Grandmother’s Legacy in Victoria, BC (Canada) has gone and created a knitted picnic. And not just a picnic blanket – there are knitted bottles of booze, a candelabra, slices of watermelon, hamburgers with all the fixings, and wooly shish kebabs.

Now this is a picnic that I wish I’d been invited to! (Insert applause sound here.)

She says: Just thought I would send you my contribution to this years International Yarnbombing Day. I had a lot of fun with this one, as I invited family and friends to share a picnic with me while I installed a picnic yarn bomb. I also did some pole socks, and a mushroom. I tried to really go all out to celebrate this awesome day. Met some great people and was reminded of what makes yarnbombing really wonderful.

And, is that corn on the cob I see too?

See the whole set of photos over at her blog Grandmother’s Legacy.

Ana Paula Reis sent me these lovely tree pics from Portugal. She’s working on covering a 40m high industrial chimney next and promises me photos!

In celebration of International Yarn Bombing Day, we are giving away the Monster Foot pattern from our book Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti.

This whimsical project is the brainchild of Chelsea Gunn who knit these with a footed American mailbox in mind.

In Canada, our mailboxes do not have feet, so Mandy and I prefer to wrap these onto benches, sandwich boards, stop sign poles, parking meters, and bicycle racks.

This pattern is a quick knit (or crochet) – so if you didn’t have a chance to create something big for Int. Yarn Bombing Day, perhaps this pattern will inspire you to make something small and quick. Imagine a world with a million woolen monster feet on sign poles and hockey sticks and hobby horses, on gumball machines and stair railings…the possibilities are endless…

Photographs by Jeff Christenson.

Download the PDF pattern here: Download the Monster Foot Pattern.
(You must have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer to see it.)

Later today I’ll also be giving away two of Arsenal Pulp Press’s other books the vegan classic How It All Vegan and the facial hair classic One Thousand Beards! Stay tuned for details on how to win!

To celebrate International Yarn Bombing Day, our publisher Arsenal Pulp Press has kindly donated  two of their most popular books for a giveaway. Leave me a comment and be entered to win a random drawing for either the vegan classic How It All Vegan or the facial hair masterpiece One Thousand Beards. First winner will get their choice, second winner will be happy because they are both cool books!

To win, leave me a comment on this post telling me about your favourite yarn bomb and include a link to a photo of it. I’ll pick two names at random. The drawing will take place on Tuesday, June 12th, 7pm Pacific Standard Time. I’ll announce winners on the blog that evening.