Friday, April 16, 2010

How to yarnbomb more.

"Giving pause to normal people one creation at a time."


How I did it: I'd actually done some yarnbombing about a year ago, decorating a stop sign near my place. Nobody's taken it down yet and it still sits there, fibers tightened from the weather. It's faded in the sunshine, but amazingly it's still a bit fuzzy. Such is the power of mohair.
That project left me with 2/3rds of the rest of the skein, though, so I went ahead and just starting a circular scarf on one of my knitting looms. It sat in the bottom of my project bin for the better part of a year until I found it Wednesday and got fed up with it not being finished! I worked on it all Wednesday night and Thursday morning until it was finished. Then when it was getting dark my hsuband and I took the dog for a walk out on a local golf course. I hastily sewed the work on to a willow branch so it looked like a scarf hanging down, took a picture, then hurried home. It was a LOT of fun.


Lessons & tips: ~If you want the project to last a while, use very sturdy fibers. Acrylics like Red Heart are nearly bomb proof and don't weather. They ~can~ stretch though, so be careful when bombing that you haven't made a piece too big for your target. If you have... oh well, improvise!

~Make sure you install your piece somewhere that can be seen by a lot of people. Just putting it in the middle of nowhere might be safe and keep you from getting yelled at, but the point of yarnbombing and guerilla art is to cause the person to pause in the middle of their day and have that "....wha...??" moment. Make sure it gets seen!

~Conversely, if you pick a high traffic area, try to do it when there will be LESS traffic. Some people will just leave you alone because you look like you're doing something weird, but others might feel they have to say something because to them you aren't producing art, it's graffiti. By doing it when there's not a lot of traffic in the area, you're less likely to run in to that type of individual.

~If you DO run in to that type of individual and haven't gotten your piece up yet, you may need to retreat and just wait until another time.

~Remember that guerilla art and yarnbombing is a temporary installation. People might love it enough to come by and steal it! (Go you!) Or they might hate it and rip it down. Accept the loss and plan your next installation. If you can make it grander and showier than the last, so much the better!


Resources: .
-http://yarnbombing.com/
-http://www.magdasayeg.com/about_knitta_please_magda_sayeg.html
-http://knittaporfavor.wordpress.com/
-http://deputy-dog.com/2008/11/urban-knitting-worlds-most-inoffensive.html


It took me 2 days.


It made me super happy

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