I love to find yarn bombings. I've stumbled across them all over Portland and even when traveling around the country. I couldn't believe it when I even found yarn bombing at Niagara Falls. When a friend asked if I wanted to go yarn bombing to celebrate International Yarn Bombing day on June 11th, I couldn't resist.
Last Saturday, my niece and I set off to participate in our first yarn bombing. We met friends at Tanner Springs Park in NW Portland, because it's a very urban park and it needed a bit of art.
The day before the event, I went through my yarn stash and pulled out lots of unfinished projects. I enjoy knitting, but I'm easily frustrated with it. Some of the projects I found were at least a decade old. I was happy that I had finally found a purpose for them. I also packed scissors and yarn needles to make the process easier.
Last Saturday was a pretty miserable day. It was pouring down rain all morning and afternoon. It was so bad that I considered canceling, but the evening started to clear up just a bit so we mustered on.
We ended up yarn bombing 22 things in a city block. It was really great fun and folks walking down the street got a kick out of it. Even a security guard went up to my friend to ask what the heck we were doing. Once the concept was explained to him, he just nodded his head and continued on his way. I was kind of surprised by this. I was worried that people would be upset by our bombing poles and trees. Quite the contrary. I didn't hear anyone say anything negative about the project.
I must say I've been hit with the yarn bombing bug. I can't wait to do more of it. With my limited knitting capacity, creating pieces to bomb are just big enough to keep me entertained, but not so big that I get frustrated or bored. I even want to put a piece on the tree outside of my house as a constant reminder to keep participating in this great fiber form of graffiti.
I can't wait to re-visit the park in the next few months to see if our pieces survive. I like the idea that it can be removed simply with scissors, although my hope is that people will enjoy seeing these as much as I do and leave them be.
