More Yarn Graffiti

The past week has been pretty eventful, my husband and I went on some trips and I took some graffiti with me, of course ;-)

First, we went to Lake Chiemsee to visit my dad and his girlfriend and to see some friends, then we returned home for a few days of board games with my sister-in-law and then we went to a hotel in Mühlheim (a veeery small town at the river Moselle) for a few days, which was a wedding present we finally took the time to enjoy :-) On our way back home we decided to surprise the family and I was very pleased to be able to decorate the garden fence of my parents-in-law (without them seeing me do it, of course).




My first mushrooms, which I already knitted while we had our end-of-year vacation, are now graffiti, as you will see in some of the next photos.
I have since knitted two more (one pink and black, one red and white), but I still need to finish the pieces to hold them before they can become graffiti.




I fixed this mushroom to the back of a bench on the Herreninsel, an island in the Chiemsee we went to by boat. We had a wonderful day and the weather was fantastic: frosty and sunny. It was a good thing we went that day since the snow started melting the next day and it also rained heavily then. Time for board games :-)
Sadly, the only (?) café on the island was closed and the cake we bought at a temporary café tent wasn't too good, but we had a good time nonetheless.





I knitted this one while on the boat to the Herreninsel and at my dad's girlfriend's later that day. When we met some friends a couple of days later and went on a long walk near the lake, I jumped at the opportunity to fix it to something - and it even goes well with the colours of that telescope ;-)




I wonder whether my parents-in-law have discovered this yet. They were the ones to give me the yarn graffiti book (Yarn Bombing) for Christmas, without really knowing what it was about, so I thought they really needed to see some yarn graffiti at close range ;-)
When I fixed this to the fence, it was snowing and raining, really disgusting, but the snow looks nice on the mushroom, don't you think?

Punk Rock Fairy Transformed

A while ago, Liz - a fellow Etsian who makes amazing neck pieces from yarn (and other things) - bought my Punk Rock Fairy, one of the art yarns I spun during the Tour de Fleece. A very short time later she kindly provided me with pictures of what she had made from it and allowed me to show them to you, our much appreciated readers :-)


The Punk Rock Fairy has been
transformed into a gorgeous
set of three
which Liz named
The Handyman:
A neckpiece, a pair of earrings,
and a pair of half gloves.






I really like all the extra screw nuts and metal discs :-)

If you're interested, be quick and visit Ginkocreation!

Happy New Year!

Yeah, I know - it's not that new anymore, but I do wish you a wonderful 2010! :-)
Twisted and I have been quite busy on our little end-of-year vacation: we've knitted quite a few graffiti and put some of them up in the small town we were staying in. I really need to get the other photos, I have only one to show you right now. As you can see, we've also decided on a name for our small crew of two. We're currently thinking about a fanpage or group on facebook and a (very small) page with a bit about us; a link to the gallery or flickr group where we'll be posting our photos; and links to other yarn graffiti artists. But no rush, we're also back to work/studying and have to balance everything again.

Inspired by the book Yarn Bombing (already mentioned) I've come up with a pattern for mushrooms, which I've sewn/crocheted onto some tags. I will try to put them onto the back rest of a park bench - and show some photos, once I'm done.

Shifting Stash

I think it's quite fascinating that I can decrease the volume of my stash by spinning yarn from it - which doesn't need as much space as unspun wool or other materials ;-) It needs even less room when wound to balls (I had a bag full of skeins and after I wound them they took about three quarters of the bag).
Anyway, enough of strange thoughts. I just wanted to show a picture of the nine small skeins I spun yesterday, with the intent of knitting them into graffiti. They are roughly between 30 and 60 m each and I will have a lot of fun combining them and embellish some lonely lamp posts or some bleak landscape - although I have to watch which of the yarns I'll use for land art, since I really don't want to leave anything that won't decompose, such as angelina or metallic thread. Well, I'll have a few days to get creative, since Twisted, our husbands and I will be spending some quiet, lazy days together. I'm really looking forward to that :-)

Happy New Year to all of you!

Loving Graffiti

No, I haven't been out putting up more graffities, but I've been busy knitting two more and spinning some suitable yarn - eight mini skeins, to be precise, to take on our mini vacation, so I can knit all I want and put up some tags somewhere else ;-) I haven't managed to take photos of the yarns (it was dark long before I stopped spinning), but I can show you the two graffities, ready to be put up somewhere:


Now, we still need a name and some great labels, both TQ and I hope to be successful on both counts tomorrow :-)

(The pirate tag I might label in honour to Captain Jack Sparrow ;-))

Dragonback - my first yarn guerilla mission

It's been in my head for a while now, I've seen pictures of others doing it, I've read blog postings and I wanted to do it myself. What am I talking about?

YARN GRAFFITI!

At first I had a hard time getting ideas, so I postponed any action and just found the general idea very appealing. Then I got a smashing book for Christmas: Yarn Bombing by Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain (our German readers will certainly enjoy this blog posting about the book), whose blog can be found here. It is full of ideas, pictures, interviews, instructions/guidelines, it's absolutely fantastic and inspiring. Suddenly, ideas started pouring and I couldn't wait to get home, grab some yarn and knitting needles and start doing it.

I wanted to start with something simple and I wanted to start close to home. I decided on a stylized dragon because the idea was suddenly there and I planned to decorate the public park behind our flat. So, when my sisters in law sat down to read the final chapters of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (the older one, 28, reading to her younger sister, 9), I saw my chance to both knit graffiti and listen to a good story (normally I listen to Jim Dale reading it to me, thanks to my father who gave me the whole audio book series for my last birthday). When we had to leave for the restaurant I took my knitting and made good progress while sitting in the tram, while waiting for dinner and while standing outside waiting for the tram back home, which was slightly uncomfortable/freezing. When we got home I crocheted the spikes and then around midnight my husband and I went outside - I to sew the tag onto a lamp post, he to document it for you ;-) (He did get a tripod for Christmas, so he kind of jumped at the chance).



I know some people think it's about letting go - you should walk away from your graffiti and never look back, but I like the idea of walking past my first one whenever I need to go into town or somewhere else the tram can take me. I'll try to be less sentimental with the next ones ;-) I am curious how long it will last, though - and whether my favourite neighbour will ask me if I did it, since she knows about my spinning and knitting.

(By the way: my hand/wrist warmers are new, too - I hope to take a better picture of them soon)

Look at this!

Earlier this year, we offered a free art yarn (Summer Sorbet) to the person who bought the 200th yarn from our shop. The skein went to Max, who has already supplied us with numerous pictures of the stunning things she has made from many others of our art yarns - and now she was so kind to send us pictures of the hat she made from the Summer Sorbet art yarn.

Just to remind you - this was the yarn:

Max tells me her daughter was very persistent and finally Max gave in and made a had for her, rather than keeping the yarn for herself. Here it is, isn't it just adorable?

I hardly recognized the yarn, to be honest! I mean, I liked it as a skein, but knitted up it's so much more wonderful. Usually, I have some idea as to how a yarn might look when knitted into a garment, but with this one I am very surprised. I love this hat! :-)
Thank you so much for sharing this, Max!