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

Sweet! KnitGirl knit up a fugly tag. Check out her post here.

Mandy and I are appearing at the Vancouver Word on the Street festival today to talk about our book. Come by and check us out at Word Under the Street (the Zine and Comix room) between 1-1:45. We’ll be making a classic 80′s BMX warm and fuzzy.

Photo courtesy of Knit Girl

A little bit of East Van Pride. I remember a friend once who coveted a silver necklace charm that said “I Heart East Van” on a cross for years. This piece totally reminds me of this. I’m glad that KnitGirl is back to tagging, and putting the political into purling.

Closer to my home in the downtown core, a bunch of people are dressing tree stumps along the Granville Strip. These stumps were once large trees, that were cut down in a day to make way for rapid transit. The centre of our city hasn’t looked the same since.

Check out their work at the Tree Cozy Project. I like the sentimental look and somewhat spooky nature of these pieces.

It appears that these pieces are mostly machine made garments, with a bit of handspun wool, felting and ribbon adornment, but I look forward to chatting with these makers and investigating their materials further.

Bright and early this morning.

Thanks to the CBC radio for having me and Mandy on your show this morning! It was fun to chat about the patterns in our upcoming book.

If you heard the show, and are looking for KnitGirl, the knitter of the Strathcozies that Mandy mentioned, you can see her work on her Flickr site. On the radio today, Mandy and I chatted about large scale projects – they tend to be the kind of yarn bombing that grab the most attention – but we also like the tiny stuff too. Small pieces can have a great impact. KnitGirl’s tags are a great example of small but powerful work.

On the flip side, Robyn Love, an incredible yarn artist, emailed me about a new project today – Make It A Pencil. She and her team of peeps (Rosemarie Krist, Willena Nanton, Leslie S., Jill Schreier, Sam Shubitz, and Barbara Van Elsen) crocheted a cozy that transformed a water tower in New York City into a pencil. Check out this amazing video:
Make It a Pencil – Robyn Love

Wow.