For the last year or so you may have begun noticing a phenomenon around Denver and other cities, colorful knitted or crocheted work hugging door handles, signs, bicycle racks and even a tree skirt! It is known as knit graffiti, guerilla knitting or “yarn bombing”. I am a knitter and thought it was fascinating. The temporal aspect is much like landscape architecture. The finished work is beautiful and colorful, then ages gracefully until it has finally lived its life and is removed or replaced. Yarn Bombing was originally started by “Knitta, Please” in Houston, TX…they have tagged everything from city buses to the Great Wall of China!
The following pictures, taken in Oak Park, Illinois, are one example of community efforts to awaken storefronts with guerilla knitting. Trees are dressed to reflect the goods and services offered by shops along a primary thoroughfare…such as a cake sitting on a tree in front of a bakery and margaritas dangling from a tree in front of a Mexican restaurant.
The pictures below were taken right here in Denver, Colorado:
Recently, the Ladies Fancy Work Society made some leg warmers for the dancing “martians” on Speer. The City removed them after 3 hours, but they were donated to a women’s shelter. Read about it on their blog.
For more information, check out: Magdasayeg.com, Ladies Fancywork Society, and Yarn Bombing
Very, very cool.
I love the bus. i wish i could do that to my car!
the bus is fabulous!