Saturday, June 18, 2011

New blog header and background

I finally got around to creating a new header and background for my blog. Thanks to ScrapArtist for the amazing digital scrapbooking material. I am especially in love with the cookie alphabet from Set My Soul on Fire.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

International Yarn Bombing Day - Gatineau, Quebec

Today is the first ever International Yarn Bombing Day. It is in conjunction with the World Wide Knit in Public Day. My colleagues and I decided about a month ago to participate in the International Yarn Bombing Day. Here is our story.

T had a crazy idea about a month ago to yarnbomb something, anything, it didn't matter what. We were able to get 6 colleagues involved in the project. After much discussion about WHAT we were going to yarnbomb (a fire hydrant, bike rack, pole, trees), we decided on a park bench. There are always tons of people out walking on the path in Gatineau, Quebec and we thought it would be pretty simple to do. We could each knit or crochet (or both) a strip in whatever yarn, colour and pattern we liked, and then we'd stitch them all together to make a blanket of sorts. The result is a crazy, wild combination of colours, patterns, flowers, tassles, pom-poms and a sheep! The result:


We spent our lunch hour yesterday yarnbombing the bench as none of us could make it out today. We then surreptitiously, but probably obviously found a spot a little further down and watched if anyone would notice it. No one took the bait at first, but then two men walking down the path saw it. One looked a little outraged, maybe even thought it was a tourist's blanket that was saving the bench. He asked the gents sitting on the next bench if they knew anything about it, then he proceeded to look around the back where we tied on the blanket. Then, the most unexpected thing happened.... he smiled and the two men sat down on it!! For about half an hour. We were elated and excited at this turn of events. When we left that evening, the blanket was still there. We're hoping it lasts at least until Monday.

My favourite part of the whole experience was working together with other yarn crafters to create something together for the public to enjoy; the creation of dialogue between the crafter and an audience. Also, I loved the sheep.