Saskatoon experiences yarn bombing as knitting attracts fans

[Here’s an example of yarn bombing on street posts. In Saskatoon, the entire street post was covered in yarn. Life is Art/Facebook]

A guerrilla knitter in Saskatoon has performed an act of kindness for visually-impaired people by covering parking meter posts that are missing their tops with a knitted “coat.”

“I dedicate this soft sculpture art installation to everyone suffering from any form of visual impairment and especially my mother,” said a note left by the anonymous knitter.

A local expert in the field admitted these objects pose a hazard for people with vision loss.

“It’s just one more obstacle in the road that’s not very visible,” the CNIB‘s manager of vision rehabilitation in Saskatoon, Lee Pion, told the Regina Leader-Post.

While yarn bombing is an innovative way to make the metal stumps safer, it isn’t new and it’s attracting many fans.

“Yarn is warm and fuzzy, and people often associate it with their childhood or a relative that knits,” Leanne Prain told Yahoo Canada News. Prain co-authored the 2009 do-it-yourself book Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti with Mandy Moore.

According to Arsenal publishers, the book “features 20 kick-ass patterns that range from hanging shoes and knitted picture frames to balaclavas and gauntlets, teaching readers how to create fuzzy adornments for lonely street furniture.”

There’s also interviews with the foremost textile artists in the community.

“As it is a comforting media mixed with street art, which often can be a bit confrontational, the results are often a bit zany, unexpected and fun!” noted Prain.

Popular yarn bombers

Actual yarn bombing, according to Prain, began in Texas in 2005. Magda Sayeg formed a group called Knitta and were ‘bombing’ sites with yarn around the world. Almost concurrently, their Swedish counterparts, known as Masquerade, were also doing the same.

Who does Prain think of as noteworthy yarn bombers?

“There’s a fellow named the Yarnbomber (on Instagram) who is covering rocks in the desert in interesting ways,” she said.

In addition, there is a Polish-born textile artist named Agata Olek, who is now based in New York City. She has been putting yarn on things all over the world including the Wall Street bull sculpture, entire homes and an obelisk in Santiago, Chile. By the way, she refuses to call herself a yarn bomber.

British artist Lauren O’Farrell (who knits under the handle Deadly Knitshade) founded a graffiti knit collective in 2009 called Knit the City with the slogan: “To guerilla knit the city of London, and beyond that the world, and bring the art of the sneaky stitch to a world without wool.”

O’Farrell prefers the term “yarn storming” over the North American term “yarn bombing.”

One of the most memorable yarn storms performed by the group was the Phonebook Cosy, which covered a typical old British telephone box in London’s Parliament Square.

Blog provides instructions

Anything can be yarn bombed: buildings, food, trees — you name it. In 2012, the Yarn Bomb Yukon squad covered an old DC-3 plane dating back to the Second World War.

“Everyone should try it at least once. There’s a novelty to seeing yarn in the landscape, but what people forget is how much time and skill hand-making takes, and that giving away something laborious that you’ve made with your hands is really a gift and a sacrifice,” said Prain.

And if you’re looking to get involved in this crafty action, there’s a even blog that instructs people on how to do it.

Yarn Bombing 101 instructs potential guerrilla knitters to “choose a 3D object that you can sew your fabric around, like a tree, street post or statue. When choosing this route, make sure to choose an object that allows you to secure your yarn bomb from falling down.”

And if utilizing a latch hook or cross stitch, it’s best to do an object more like a bench or fence.

If this is too much for you, Prain has an idea: “If you don’t knit or crochet, try a pom pom bomb!”