It has been a while since I’ve posted an interview on yarnbombing.com, and I’m glad that this is such a good one. Based in Sammamish, Washington; Suzanne and Beth go by the moniker ’2fibrefriends’. As moms who ‘long for something more’, they are covering their local area haunts in fibre and Dr. Seuss-like whimsy.

I asked them the usual questions, and they came up with some great, unusual responses:

Tell me about yourself

We are/have been inspired by other yarn bombers … we both took the University of Washington’s Certificate of Fiber Arts program for the 2009/10 year … our first class found us at the UW book store and the book that jumped off the shelves was “Yarn Bombing—The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti” (you may be familiar with this book) … we started small but one thing led to another … and before we knew it, we were covering 20 foot stumps in our fair city with 68,000 yards of yarn or 38.6 miles.

A Fibre Bombing of the Famous Fremont Troll in Seattle. Photo by Beth Newfeld.

Do you knit or crochet? Are you sneaky when you tag?
We both knit and crochet. We like to use reclaimed yarn—we are frequent shoppers at Value Village and we don’t hesitate to unravel an afghan for our purposes. We like to tag trees, light posts, chairs at Starbucks, etc. Sometimes we work big and sometimes we work small and discreet.

We tend to tag in broad daylight and we did seek permission from our city for the tree sock installations.

Our families do know about our proclivity to yarn bomb and we quite often make them culpable … they’ve knit panels together, crocheted flower centers, installed with us.

Have we ever been caught? We asked permission from the city for our large tree sock installations but, for other projects, no we have not been caught.

Photo courtesy of Jeff Newfeld

Any words of wisdom for Yarn-Bombing readers?

Why not? We often get asked “why” … so “why not”? If something we do brings a little magic or whimsy to someone’s day, hurrah.

Thanks Beth and Suzanne for taking the time to answer my questions! I look forward to seeking out your work next time I visit Seattle!

To see Beth and Suzanne in action, check out their photo sets on Flickr.

Thanks to everyone who came out last weekend to make cherry blossoms for the Historic Joy Kogawa House Yarn Bombing. We had a great turnout of enthusiastic crafty-types and Historic Joy Kogawa House has been receiving lovely pink blossoms in the mail. We can’t wait to sew them all together and onto the tree!

Here are a few photos last Sunday’s event:

A plethora of crocheted cherry blossoms from North Vancouver!

Mandy gives a knitting lesson.

I talked about the global movement of yarn bombing and showed some of my favorite photos of knit graffiti.

Everybody knitted with pink yarn!

Poet and novelist Joy Kogawa was present too,  if only in cut-out format.

After a day of knitting, we measure the beloved cherry tree in preparation for the yarn bombing on March 6th.

If you are local and couldn’t make it out last Sunday – please consider joining us in making cherry blossoms on Saturday, February 5th between 2-3:30. If you don’t live in the Vancouver area, you can still contribute by mailing in blossoms to Historic Kogawa House. We will take blossoms of any style and any type of yarn – as long as they are pink!

(A special thanks to photographer Jeff Christenson for capturing the afternoon.)

Knit Graffiti Round-up

My mailbox has been heavy with new yarn bombing feats – while we have much to post in the way of interviews and new yarn bombers trying their odds at sneakiness, here are a few noteworthy links of late:

You can now read Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti in German! The book has been translated by Droemer Knaur.

We’ve been giddy about Olek’s winter yarn bombing of the great brass bull on Wall Street in NYC and we hope you are too. While the knitting only lasted one night, videos are forever. If you haven’t seen this video, it is a must watch.

Speaking of large mammels: a yarn-bombed Hippo in Berlin (via the industrious KnitHacker)

More cozy trees in Brooklyn.

Lovely video of Dot Vile yarnbombing in Philly.

Genny’s birthday is coming up, and rather than pub crawling, she is inviting her friends to yarn ‘crawl’ aka bomb. Nice!

80 year old woman may or may not know that she is yarn bombing. What do you think?

Also via KnitHacker, I am absolutely charmed by this variation of the Chelsea Gunn’s monster foot pattern from our Yarn Bombing book: http://knithacker.com/2011/01/24/dragon-foot-yarn-bomb-spotted-in-saarbrucken/. It is the cutest monstrosity that I have ever seen.

W2 Media Centre

Mandy and I will be giving a brief reading from the Yarn Bombing book at the W2 Writers Series tomorrow night:

Date: Wednesday February 24th
Location: W2 Culture + Media House 112 West Hastings Street across from the  Woodwards Building.

Doors open at 6:30
First Reader 710ish
Hosted by Sean Cranbury & Hal Wake

Program:

Opening Remarks: Sean Cranbury

Introducing Honoured Special Guest Michael Nichol Yahgulanaas who will showcase a video/interactive discussion about his work.

From there we will go to a streamlined line-up of 5-7 minute readings from our writers including two breaks.  Like this:

Rhonda Waterfall
Weldon Hunter
kc dyer

Break

Steven Galloway
Leilah Nadir
Alex Leslie
Caroline Adderson

Break

Leanne Prain & Mandy Moore aka The Yarn Bombers
McKinley M Hellenes
Timothy Taylor
Brad Cran

Here’s a video about the series: http://realvancouverwriters.com/2010/02/19/cool-video-about-w2-real-vancouver-writers-series/

Plus, there will be prizes, a cash bar, and  great art and photography on the walls.

If you are in the Vancouver area, Mandy and I will be signing books at the Vancouver Museum this coming Thursday, January the 21st. Come see Yarn Bombing contributor Knit Girl give a talk on craftivism as well as many other crafty-related events. From the official press release:

A Night of Social Crafting

Come celebrate the creativity and community of the growing DIY craft, art and design movement in Vancouver.

Generously sponsored by OPUS and Blim, there’ll be materials and workshops in a range of art and craft media from paper to yarn. Workshops (listed below) will begin at 8pm. There will also a mini Got Craft market, along with music, snacks and local brews.

Activities are geared so that everyone can participate – from the craft newbie to seasoned creators.

Blim: button-making and screen printing workshops

Knitgirl: Knitting and Craftivism

Kirsti Wakelin: drawing/ exquisite corpse.

If you’re super-proud of what you make at DIY@MOV, MOV is providing exhibit space so that your creation can be on public display in a museum. Think of the bragging rights!

$15 – Tickets available online or at the door.
MOV Members Free

In the meantime, we leave you with some random y-bomb links to round out 2009:

Yarn bombing puzzles and charms Christmas shoppers in Ecucha

Art Yarn‘s Yarn Forward project grows and grows.

The BYOB crew (Bombing Yarn Over Bend) offers instructions via Cyclocross magazine on how to cozy up your bike.

Tasmanian Renegade Craftivism

New crochet yarn bombing blog: Crochet the Day

Memory through knitting: the Elegant Spider remembers the victims of the Commemorates Victims of the École Polytechnique shootings in Montreal through yarn bombing. Watch the video here.

You have got to love husbands who leap from the car to take photos of yarn bombing! Via Twitchy Fingers.

Macleans Magazine pronounces Yarn Bombing part of the lingo that made 2009. We like to be topical.

We are looking forward to 2010 and lots of new knitting and crochet madness! Happy holidays dear yarn-bombers, stormers, and wool enthusiasts…here is wishing you a warm and wooly season, and fresh new things to cast on in the New Year.

Danielle of DeeDee’s Devotions, has been adorning trees with little creatures. She says:

I decided to do crocheted butterflies so I dug around online and found a simple pattern. I swear all I do is make butterflies these days. I think by the time I finish yarnbombing butterflies I’ll have made about 110. I put up about 50 today.

Props to Danielle’s dad who also has helped her install the butterflies. This picture makes me smile:

Dad and I also went to Central Community Park and pinned up a bunch of butteflies there. Dad was surprised by a lady who shouted “Is that Yarn graffiti?!” ha ha! He said it was so she hopped over the fence and grabbed one of the butteflies. Apparently she heard about yarn bombing on the CBC and by the way she jumped and waved at me (Dad told her I was the one who crocheted them all), she was pretty darned excited about it!

In other news,

KnittaPlease has posted a submission call for knit graffiti photographs for a new book that will be coming out next year (found via the Subversive Yarn Network)

There will be a Yarn Bombing Stitch and Bitch event at the Davie Street Book Warehouse this thursday evening. Come one, come all!

On twitter? Don’t forget to use #yarnbombing so that we can find your knit graffiti posts!

PS: This event is B.Y.O.H.A.N.Y (Bring your own hooks and needles and yarn).

Our knit and crochet bike is a homage to the many artists who have created textile bikes. Most famously, Janet Morton’s Sweater Bike…

Sweater Bike, 2004 by  Janet Morton

See more of Janet Morton’s work here: http://www.arts.wisc.edu/artsinstitute/IAR/morton/samples.html

and Theresa Honeywell’s knitted motorcycle which we feature in the Yarn Bombing book…

Image copyright of Theresa Honeywell

There are also striped bikes, white knitted bikes, bikes with knitted serpentine handlebars, and lovely crocheted bike seats.

And if you like your knitted bikes tiny, Instructibles has published a tutorial for a wee knitted bike: http://www.instructables.com/id/Bike-Love/

What are your favourite examples of textile-wrapped bikes?

The Ladies Fancywork Society, who kindly allowed us to interview them for the book and provided photographs of their beautiful crochet fancyworks, will be hosting a incognito book signing this coming Friday, September the 4th at Fancy Tiger Crafts in Denver, Colorado. If you are in the ‘hood, be sure to check it out! Mandy and I sure wish that we could be there!

For those closer to Vancouver, Canada, Mandy and I will be having the official Yarn Bombing book launch at Three Bags Full knit shop on Main Street on September 17th, beginning at 5:30 pm. There will be yarn bombing stories, tasty snacks, and lots of mayhem! We hope that you can join us. More details to come on the launch soon.

If you happen to be in Surrey, BC this weekend – drop by the local museum and meet us! (By the way, that’s in Canada – I don’t want to confuse our readers across the pond) Mandy and I will be speaking about our book and knit and crochet graffiti at 3 pm at the Surrey Museum.

Our talk is part of a day of yarn related events. Here is the official press release of the museum:

Join a summer picnic of knitters, crafters and suppliers in the Surrey Museum.

Entrance to Museum galleries by admission fee.

We will also be signing copies of yarn bombing – get yours fresh off the press!