Spinning a Yarn

It's a worldwide phenomenon and it's coming to a street near you. What am I talking about? Well, the cultural curiosity that is 'Yarnbombing', of course. This 'anti-graffiti' movement has been gaining ground in recent years and, while it certainly has its detractors, it is generally seen as a bit of creative, harmless fun.

So what is yarnbombing, and what exactly are these guerilla knitters trying to achieve? Well, put simply, it is the art of decorating familiar urban features with brightly colored, knitted woolen effects.

Whether it's simply placing a custom-made scarf around the neck of a prominent statue, or brightening up the ugly steel pole of a downtown traffic light, the sole aim is to bring cheer to an often dull environment.

With active yarnbombers busily adding splashes of color to cities around the globe, the movement has, unsurprisingly, attracted a good deal of media attention. Newspapers and magazines from London, Vancouver, New Zealand, to Philadelphia and beyond, have been falling over themselves to unravel the truth behind this knotty spectacle.

The busy knitters and textile artists who generously donate their pieces to the streets of our often gray towns, are aware that their handiwork may be swiftly removed, destroyed, or even regarded as reckless vandalism. But, for most observers, the crocheted creations are simply met with joy. Wry smiles can be seen on the faces of those catching sight of the latest wooly addition to the urban environment, while scores of passers by, stop to take photographs.

Some cities have scores of independent yarnstormers, occasionally enhancing their streets in groups, while in other areas, sole artists work their magic unaided.

One rogue knitter, Magda Sayeg, told the Philadelphia Inquirer recently that it all started by accident. Seeing the joyous response from customers, after she'd created a 'handle-cosie' for her clothes store door in Houston, she set off to brighten up other mundane parts of the city. Within a short time, word had spread, and inspired wool-lovers were picking up their knitting needles and taking up the cause in conurbations around the world, and yarnbombing, as it would soon come to be known, was born.

Perhaps, in these times of relative hardship and financial concerns, we all benefit a little from seeing something that stimulates a response of some kind. And maybe the sight of a tree wrapped in bright bands of woolen color in a local city square, as seen recently in downtown Philadelphia, won't change the world but may at least make us look at things around us, slightly differently.

And with the recent publication of Yarnbombing, the definitive guide to this unconventional artform, it is likely that we will see something of an increase in the number of gaily colored stop-sign posts, bike racks, trees and railings in our towns and cities, in the coming months.

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