Yarn Bomb in the Neighborhood

About a year ago, I decided that the street sign at the corner of our house was a good venue for a yarn bomb. Thanks to the city park across the street and our location near the town center, there’s lots of foot traffic — neighbors of all ages, dog walkers, commuters, soccer players and fans.

Some of my knitting students used extra yarn from their projects to create segments of what would become the knitted wrapping. If you look closely at the video, you can see “memories” of Rachel’s butterfly dishcloth and Monkey’s little sweater.

Spruced up the corner street sign. #yarnbomb #knitting #newtonma #makesmesmile #knittersofinstagram

A post shared by Mary Ann Hill (@saltwaterhill) on Jun 9, 2017 at 6:01am PDT

As I was stitching the pieces onto the pole, about 10 people stopped to comment and ask questions. “What happens when it rains?” was the most common question. I tried not to sound snarky or dismissive when I replied, “It’ll get wet.”

Later in the day, my friend Elyse called as she was walking her dog. “Your yarn bomb makes me happy,” she exclaimed. I couldn’t agree more.

Bike Rack Yarn Bomb

With all the rain we’ve been having this month, I’d been keeping my fingers crossed that nothing would be falling from the sky during my knitting girls’ field trip to install their yarn bomb. Fortunately, the bike rack that we wrapped was in a shady spot since Mother Nature gifted us a hot (93F, 34C) sunny day.

The first decision was what order to attach the 8 or 10 knitted segments, 7 inch wide rectangles of various lengths. Once each was pinned onto the rack, the installation began.

Each segment was stitched onto the rack, then the ends of the segments were connected so the rack was covered in one very long (about 23 feet, 7 meters) tube.

As always with 10- and 11-year old girls, the conversation was wide ranging and non-stop — mostly about the adventure at hand — and occasionally interspersed with outbreaks of singing!

• “How long do you think this will stay here?”
• “I really hope someone doesn’t cut this off or mess with it.”
• “Is this art?”

The project is part of a city-wide Festival of the Arts, an annual event that usually includes some type of public art creation. This year’s public art is “Hooked on Newton,” a celebration of fiber via knitting, crochet, and (I’ve heard) tapestry that will be installed at a nearby lake. The first official installation is this coming Sunday, but we got permission from the organizers to decorate the bike rack on a week day, so the girls could participate.

They had a blast and were all justifiably proud of their creation.  Me, too.

 

Gearing Up for Yarn Bombing

You can imagine my delight when I learned that my city is organizing a yarn bombing as part of its annual, yearlong Festival of the Arts. Only they’re not calling it yarn bombing because, well, bombing is frowned upon.

With a much more PC tamer moniker, “Hooked On Newton” is a public art project, a collaboration of the Newton Arts Council and the Crystal Lake Conservancy. The lake — specifically, the picnic area and public beach — will be the palette for knit and crochet creations.

The best part is that anyone, even you, dear reader, can join in the fun. Send me something for the yarn bombing public yarn art, and I’ll be sure it gets “installed.” Heck, I’ll even take a photo and be sure you get due credit!

We’ve got a water theme — maritime and/or lake — but I don’t think anyone’s very picky about what’s included. Maybe some leaves? Or fish that could be stitched onto a fence or tree? How about this amazing duck? Speaking of trees, we’ll definitely be wrapping trees. Find me on Ravelry @saltwaterhill to see other patterns I’ve favorited or popped into my library.

Yarn Bomb Wrap a Bike Rack*

I’ve volunteered to lead the bike rack wrapping since it’s a great project for the 4th and 5th graders in my knitting classes. What do we need for a bike rack but a lot of scarf segments?

The lake has a wiggly bike rack like the one above although currently not wrapped and definitely covered by a fair bit of snow. We’ll collect all sections and install (by sewing) them sometime in May.

Here’s my bike rack wrap recipe:

“Scarves” that are 7 inches wide and any length. We need a total of 300 inches to cover one bike rack.

Knit with any colorful yarn (wool, acrylic, cotton). Change colors and/or yarns. Stripes are fun but not required.

Cast on enough stitches for 7 inch width. If you’re using:

• Bulky/chunky yarn (approx 3-4 stitches/inch): cast on 21 or 22, use needle sz 10-11
• Worsted/Aran yarn (approx 4-5 st/inch): cast on 28-35, use needle sz 7-9
• DK/light worsted yarn (approx 5-6 st/inch): cast on 35-42, use needle sz 5-7

Use whatever stitch pattern you’d like. Bind off when you’ve knit as much as you want. Let me know when you’re done (via Ravelry, Twitter, or a comment here) and I’ll send the mailing address.

*try saying that 10 times fast!