Archive for the ‘Crochet’ Category

Woo-tastic

Monday, February 1st, 2010

I was running errands with my partner Jeff this afternoon, and we walked pas the Davie Street Village Garden (home of Jessica Glesby’s knitted wall)… I looked up, and suddenly it was raining cats and dogs…literally….

Davie Village Garden

WooWork animals

A delightful parade of  little cats and dogs encased in crocheted raindrops.

The handiwork seems to be by WooWork. Howie – you are a master of amigurumi and yarn bombing cuteness! In a city where it rains so hard, your work is a delight. It definitely made my day and that of many others.

Be sure to check out the following via WooWork.com:

The edible cat

The shark fin soup

and, the crocheted spy wear.

“Um, this guy is kind of awesome,” said Jeff.  Yep, I agree. Howie, we can’t wait to see what you get up to during the Olympics!

  • Share/Bookmark

Happy Holidays!

Friday, December 25th, 2009

Mandy and Leanne will be taking some time away from blogging to enjoy the holidays, knit up a storm, and rest up with family. We’ll be back with yarn bombing goodness the first week of January 2010.

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.

  • Share/Bookmark

A Flutter of Butterflies

Wednesday, November 4th, 2009

If you are driving around the Fraser Valley (that’s in British Columbia, Canada),  you may notice a flutter of woolen butterflies.

Crochet-Capers-001

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.

Crochet Capers 006

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

Crochet-Capers-003

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!

  • Share/Bookmark

Robyn Love talk in NYC

Wednesday, May 6th, 2009

Knit and crochet Artist Robyn Love (of Crochet Me a Pencil (see video below), the Knitted Mile, and Spindle 7) will be speaking at the Lion Brand Store in New York City tomorrow night:

She will be giving a talk about her work, and the work of three other artists: Elaine Reichek, Janet Morton and Barb Hunt, at Lion Brand Studio (34 West 15th Street in Manhattan) this Thursday, May 7th. Doors open at 5:30 p.m. and seats are first come, first served. The talk begins at 6 p.m.

If you wish to attend, RSVP at studio@lionbrandyarn.com, as space is limited

Here is Robyn in action:

  • Share/Bookmark

‘Scarfing’ Denver

Saturday, May 2nd, 2009

Embedded video from CNN Video.

The Ladies Fancywork Society on CNN.

They were also featured in an article by the Colorado 9 News last month, which has some great quotes from the group.

  • Share/Bookmark

Black ‘n white, and read all over.

Sunday, March 1st, 2009

I’ll admit it, I’m still on a stripe kick. I’m quite enamored with textile artist Sara Noble’s Zebra Pole. Crochet out of plastic shopping bags, it has been hanging the south of England for a few weeks now:

imgp13801
imgp1465

Images courtesy of Sara Noble

Sara says: I walked out my flat last week trying to think where and what I could yarn bomb – and there it was, all down my road there are about five zebra crossings! All looking really slick with their black and white stripped lines and yellow flashing lights. My work is normally really brightly coloured, and this gave me a fresh approach. I stripped up plastic bags to make the yarn for the crochet because I thought wool would go all soggy in our current British rainy climate, also the plastic fits in with the shiny look of lamp post, making it more invisible. Watch out around East London – as more of these crop up!

Sara’s also been busy decorating the banks of the Thames:
imgp1597

I had been planning to do knitted graffiti as a way of getting my work back out into a bigger, site specific space, and was a amazed when a friend forwarded me the yarn bombing website, hence creating a sense of urgency to make something!

Thanks for sharing this with us Sara! We can’t wait to see what is next. To learn more about Sara, check out her website.

There has been lots of excitement in London lately – yarn bombing hero Magda Sayeg recently went tagging with a bunch of folks. Deadly Knitshade of Pearl Interrupted has a great story on her blog about bombing with Magda.

And, speaking of black and white, check out this awesome tutorial for spinning yarn out of newspaper. I’m really enthused about this – hence the groan-worthy title of this post. I’d love to know if anyone tries to y-bomb with this. It would probably work best in warm, dry places – not the Canadian rainforest that I reside in.

  • Share/Bookmark

Yarn-tastic

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

shayla2
Image by Shayla Perreault Newcomb, found via Grrl+Dog

Wow – I’ve just looked at the work that has been created by contributors to
Grrl+Dog’s
Global Guerilla Knit Up. The work is amazing! Over the past few months I’ve been asked a few times how I think knit and crochet graffiti will evolve, and if it will stick around. I think what has happened today is a testament to the fact that yarn bombing is only limited by the imagination. And, as we all know – crocheters and knitters really have no limits when it comes to imagination.

Here are a few of my favourite pieces:

M is for Martha

The CrabApple Cacti

and Leslie, who has an amazing story told by images and a few words. She says: And yes, the first thing I knitted after 25 years of knitting nothing was a sweater for a tree.

Eek!

  • Share/Bookmark

I love stripes.

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

I adore stripes. Stripes are simple, effective, and quirky. Stripes bring life to an otherwise dull pole or piece of street furniture.

I think that the KnittUps! do stripes really well:

knitups

knittups3
Images courtesy of the KnittUps!

While digging into the stash and coming up with colour combinations on the fly is fun, there are a few tools that I adore on days when I’m feeling stuck.

The Random Stripe Generator. An oldie but a goodie, the random stripe generator lets you pick approximate shades of yarn, and how many rows you would like the stripes to be. It then spits out a pattern for knitting or crochet. This is such a fun tool to play with. It really helps you visualize how your project will turn out.

Here is a stripe that I made this morning:
randomstripeg

A few tools that I use as a graphic designer really help me with my knitting. I adore Kuler. Kuler is a social community where folks can create and post their own colour palettes (which then can be directly imported into graphic design software such as Adobe Illustrator). Even if you are not a graphic designer, it can be a fun site to hunt around when you need to feel inspired. Who would have ever thought that they would need a palette inspired by Blade Runner or sushi?

Similarily, Color Lovers is a social community where folks contribute articles on historical colourways, trendy hues, and up and coming prints.

Have you used any of these tools in your work? If so, I’d love to see the results!

  • Share/Bookmark

Interview #5 The Ladies Fancywork Society

Sunday, August 17th, 2008

Photographs courtesy of The Ladies Fancywork website.

This past weekend, we interviewed Edie of the Ladies Fancywork Society. The Ladies Fancywork Society began in Denver, but now has members in Chicago, Denver and Amsterdam!

Like the Micro-Fiber Militia, The Ladies Fancywork Society tags with crochet – but that is where the similarity ends. While MFM’s work is very street-orientated, the Ladies Fancywork Society is interested in reviving the grandmotherly arts and bringing all the ruffles and lace work that crochet has to offer. This group doesn’t say bombing or tagging, they say that they are ‘putting skirts on the world’. Crew meetings have been known to been supplemented with cupcakes and vintage movies

Their code names are just as girlie. The ladies have monikers such as Vivian, Edie, The Twins, Ester, Jeanne Lois, and Lady Magdalena Pompelwaite. With ten members ranging in age from 22-30, they’ve managed to hit places as far apart as Amsterdam, Syracuse, Athens and New York. Some projects are individual, and others are group collaborations. They even joined forces last Valentine’s Day when Ladies Fancywork teamed up with another street art group, the Magnet Mafia, to distribute crocheted hearts on magnets around Denver.

Their work is just as sweet and delicious as you would expect – flouncy, lacy and pretty – though sometimes adorned with skulls or rocket ships.

Check out their website at http://www.ladiesfancyworksociety.com

or their myspace page at: http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendID=266252743.

I wish I lived in Denver so I could join up with them for a night of crafting and cupcakes!

  • Share/Bookmark