Fringe Bombing

Last night, my friend Sean and I went out for a walk downtown. We wandered around for a while, talking and catching up, and then I put up some yarn bombs. He took some photos, and we had a good time.
I am in the process of adding the photos to the Facebook album right now.

Some late night yarn bombs

Late last week, my friend Sean and I went out yarn bombing. We go on walks together once in a while, and I asked if he wanted to combine a walk with some creativity, and he agreed. Six of the yarn bombs I have recently made went up in the downtown area. Some of my favourites, for sure.
This one is a light pink one that went up right in front of the art gallery on a pretty busy road. It was hard for Sean to get a decent photo of any of them because of poor lighting and not being familiar with an iPhone camera.
An other went up on the other side of the gallery, one near the bus station, one on a parking meter near a parking garage and two right near the downtown strip. I will try to get some other photos of these ones in the day light.
I am going to work on some more in brighter colours very soon.

A Video About Yarn Bombing

Featured on Bike Windsor

I love riding my bike. It is my favourite mode of transpo-rtation, as long as the wind is in my favour. There is a group of local cyclists that I have ridden with before. Their site is Bike Windsor, run by Darren, that I taught to knit a while back.
Just the other day, one of the contributors to the site, Kari, posted something about the city needing more bike racks, and included this photo. I remember putting this tag up way back in July, the same day as Phog Phest. It looks like it's holding up pretty well.

My 200th update!!!

This makes update number 200!
When I started this blog, I didn't have any sort of expectations. I was blogging to record my knitting efforts. And I didn't even do a good job at that. I kept up with it, regardless, and here I am, 18 months, 79 followers, and countless comments later.
Thank you. Each and every one of you. The newcomers, and those of you who have been here from the get-go.

Yesterday, I met up with local photographer Tyler Brownbridge. He works for the Windsor Star, and photographed some of my yarn bombs for an article. Oh, I was in the pictures, too. That article should run either this Thursday or next, and as soon as it does, I will post it here.

The Made In Windsor store!!

Like I mentioned the other day, I'll be selling my things in the Made In Windsor store.
I stopped by and yarn bombed them. It wasn't hidden (I did it during the middle of the day!) and I was caught!
You can see the awesome banner and the mascots, Dot and Dash, in the background.
Unfortunately, this tag was taken down or stolen or something. Which is super super depressing, because I put up a few more in the area, hoping that they would all stay up for a while. I'll have to bike down there to see if any are left.

A new yarn bomb!

This is yet an other tag I put up downtown. It was sent to me on Twitter by a very nice guy by the name of Konstantine. He saw it and snapped a picture and asked if it was mine.
What a wonderful thing the internet is at times.
I can't quite remember putting this one up, because it was likely during my tagging spree the day of Phog Phest. I do remember that yarn, though. I made a few more with the same stuff, and I still have a couple left to go up.

I also decided to use some of my old knitted scarves that haven't sold at craft shows as tags. some of them are the perfect width to use on things like railings and fences. I'l have to go out and take some measurements before I bring them out, but many of them would look awesome!

Attracting attention

I was just tagged in a picture on Facebook, only it was not a picture of me.
It was one of my yarn bombs. It made me insanely happy. I sorta giggled and grinned with my silly mouth guard in. And then I drooled on myself.***

I love how most of our parking meters seem to have a slant to them.

This picture was taken by one of the members of Killbourne, an awesome all female band from Calgary, Alberta. I put this one up the night of the art show, outside of one of my favourite bars downtown other than Phog. Seeing this helps ease the pain of losing the giant tag. It's showing me that the work is being noticed.
And appreciated.

***I grind my teeth at night, so I have to wear a mouth guard. I keep it in sometimes during the day, because I clench my jaw. It makes me drool if my mouth is open too long.

Knitting and Tagging and Life in General

The weather is starting to get pretty warm and staying that way. I am hoping to keep up with the knitting. I will either keep chugging along with the tags, or move onto some nice cotton dishcloths.
I don't remember the last time I made dishcloths. I know I found one in my knitting closet that was THISCLOSE to being finished. And then I finished it. Other than that, not a clue as to when the last time I started one was.

As far as the tagging goes, everything is awesome. I went out bombing on Thursday, after craft night, and put up at least 5 pieces. I've been moving outwards from the general downtown area. And away from just parking meters. And away from the ground.
More information about this will come when I have pictures. I still depend on others to take pictures for me, because I still have NO idea where my camera is.

Updates will be getting a little more spread apart for the next little bit seeing as I haven't been knitting as much. I will keep them coming though!

The secret knitting is revealed!

A couple weeks ago, I mentioned that I was starting a new tag, but that I couldn't say what it was.
First, watch this video (WARNING: some foul language is used)

Notice the Make Something Beautiful piece.

Now look at this.

That's the same piece.
Sitting in my kitchen.

Late last night, I went out with a couple friends, asked Dan to borrow his drill to fix my door (THIS IS THE TRUTH! a screw on my door pulled out of the frame and my screwdriver just wasn't cutting it.) and left out that we were stealing his graffiti.
We were in and out in under 10 minutes. and this time includes putting up the replacement piece.
This is where the knitting comes in.
I knit a red, black and white square, about 4 feet in size, to staple up in the place where this piece was.
Dan (the same Dan that made my business cards) contacted me this morning asking me to return the piece.
I happily obliged, and bought him a cake to apologize for any hard feelings. I also showed him pictures of the tag, it the original spot, and the new spot.
This is the start of the removal. I had it stapled up pretty securely, and it took a few minutes with flat-head screwdrivers to get them all out.
Once it was down, we screwed the original piece back into its permanent home and ran around the corner to hang the knitted version in a similar spot.
This is the new home, where I hope it stays for a few months. It's quite secure, and will take some effort to remove it.

I do hope that there are no hurt feelings for anyone involved in the original installation. This was meant to grab attention, and I hoped for no negative in that area.
I just like to start shit, and this seemed like the perfect way to do so.

Knitted bicycle!

Well, sort of.
Darren, of Photo404 and Bike Windsor, has covered the frame of his bicycle in knitting.
I taught him how to knit at Broken City Lab and Craft Night At Phog over the past few weeks, and he ran with it. It looks even better up close.

This week is flying by!

I can't believe it's Friday already, and I haven't posted at all this week!
I went out and did a little more yarn bombing, had craft night yesterday, and I've been having a good time all around.
This was taken by Darren's camera (timers are a wonderful thing!) after craft night. I headed home sort of early, it had been a long day.

It's Sunday again!

So I started something! But first, what I finished.
I have completed a few tags here and there this past week, as well as 2 scarves with the new yarn I picked up. Pictures of the tags will happen when they find their new homes.
And today, I started an other tag. This one is made out of yarn I bought ages ago in a large bag of mill ends. I do that quite often, if I find something interesting in those bags. I often use the yarn for charity square knitting, and it's PERFECT for knitting tags: cheap, colourful and plentiful. The particular yarn I chose for today's tag (which will likely go on a parking meter) is crazy! It's got pompom things, and eyelash things and it's multi colour and awesome! Pain to knit with, though. I'm trying to figure out how I am going to sew it up once it's on the meter. Usually I leave a long tail of the yarn and use that to sew it up. In this case, it will be pretty difficult with all the little bobbles and thingys all over it. I'll likely end up just taking a scrap piece of blue similar to the blue in the yarn itself and sew it up with that.

More tags to come soon, I'm sure!

Some yarn bombing news

There is good news and bad news in this post, a fair warning.

The good news first! The Phog Video was featured on one of my favourite knitting blogs on Monday. I was shocked when it came up in my Google Following list. I had a huge grin on my face right away, and then Twittered about it pretty much immediately. It's crazy how far the internet reaches.

Now for the bad news. The Cheetahs tag was taken down at some point. I expected this at some point, but not so soon. It was a very pretty tag, pink/red sparkly eye lash yarn, wrapped around the fence at the far end of the patio. For those who are not locals or who are not aware, Cheetahs is an Adult Entertainment venue, as it says on their sign. Once Sam and I have more tags up, I do plan on hitting them again. Perhaps something larger, yet less visible would be appropriate.

I am still working on a few tags here and there, but I have been alternating between them and some scarves. I just cast off the white Phentex scarf, and I'm starting on a grey/black one right now. It seems odd to be knitting scarves at the beginning of summer, but I like to think ahead.

The ORIGINAL Yarn Bombers

I just found this post on one of the guerilla knitting blogs I follow.
It's about original "yarn bombing".
Enjoy

It's Sunday!

With all the hooplah surrounding the local yarn bombing (the entry right before this one, if you missed it) I have been starting new projects every other day at least.
I've completed a total of 6 tags, 3 of which have been installed. The other 3 may make it up this Tuesday. I have yet to decide where they will be going, but I do have a plan for the locations that will be tagged.

I live in Windsor, Ontario, which some people seem to think is a suburb of Detroit. When Detroit held the Super Bowl, several thousand people crossed the border every day to get into Windsor's full nude strip clubs and exotic massage parlous. We have several of both. I have decided that every one of them in the downtown area will get a frilly pink thing knit for them and placed on the outside. The male strip will get a fuzzy blue one.

Pictures will come soon!

Start something... Tuesday?

I missed Sunday! I ended up sleeping for a good portion of the day. I haven't been feeling 100% for the past little while, and sleep seemed like a good remedy. As far as I can tell, it was a great choice! Yesterday was a great day, and today, despite the rainy weather, I feel awesome.
This morning, I was checking Twitter (Feel free to follow me! I update fairly often about everything from knitting, to what I'm eating, to where I am headed for the day) and noticed that a local person with a lot of influence was talking about guerrilla knitting. He wanted his business to be "tagged" at some point this summer. Little did he know that I had already cast on his tag.
I am using size 9 needles, and some random acrylic multi-coloured yarn I found in one of my boxes. I am doing mostly garter stitch, with the occasional stockinette , or lacy area.
As soon as this piece goes up, I will update with more information. I plan on making several tags and going out sometime this week and throwing them all up.