Shamrock Tag

After re-reading my yarnbombing book I have decided that I want to get more into it. There is no one in my area doing it right now (that I know of). Though in all seriousness I don't think there is anyone doing any form of serious street art in my area. My crew is small- just me and a sneaky accomplice/lookout. For St. Patty's we tagged a bunch of trees around a local trail. Being our first time out locally we got spooked by a couple of passing people (the started walking right at us!) so we didn't get many good picks.

Shamrock tag

 

 

In action

Hopefully more will be on the way.

Yarn Bombing

I get easily distracted. There is so much cool stuff out there in the world and with it all at our fingertips 24/7 its no wonder I cant concentrate. I flit from this craft to that. Embroidery to crochet to sewing to baking to...you get the idea. When I found out about Yarn Bombing I was intrigued and delighted. I had recently been on a bit of a street art kick anyway but I am nowhere near brave enough to wield a can of spray paint. But Yarn Bombing? Hmm. That I could maybe handle. What it is: Knit and crochet graffiti that makes the world just a wee bit more snugly but is still totally removable. (That is my definition by the way.) I probably found out about the book Yarn Bombing: The Art of Knit and Crochet Graffiti from a crafty blog. I asked for it for Christmas and it never came. And then it magically showed up in a birthday present!

So inspiring from cover to cover I poured over the book finding more inspiration than I could handle. I was so ready to get out there and DO it! But what? What kind of tags should I make? I am sort of a lone crafter in my parts so there was no 'crew' to back me (or to form as of yet- if you are in the Rochester, MN area and are interested in that let me know...) and I was a bit directionless. So much inspiration and no real plan. Most tags are simply cozies that can be made to fit a plethora of outdoor objects including: trees, sign posts, pipes, fences, handles, etc. I kind of wanted to make something that had some shape to it.

My idea finally came from a band. I get emails from 30 Seconds to Mars as part of their street team Echelon. They just came out with a new album and their new symbol is the "Triad" which is a simple triangle with a horizontal line going through it. The band is promoting the "Triad Global Assault" to try to get this symbol in as many places as possible. They have a flickr page here. I decided that THAT was something I could crochet and put up different places. I stitched up 3 triads pretty quick and then they sat on my desk. They sat there until finally I was leaving for my long awaited trip to Ireland and somewhat on a whim and somewhat inspired by other Yarn Bombing crews that go global I put one of the pieces in my purse.

It didn't happen until the third day of our trip. My friend and I were taking an easy day enjoying a scenic drive on the Dingle peninsula. Well even in such a small area we got lost and ended up circling this one small village about three times. Finally my friend Aimee, who was driving, declared that we were stopping and taking a few minutes to "figure our shit out". The place we stopped was a scenic little beach and it was a beautiful and sunny day so we both enjoyed a chance to stretch our legs, takes some pictures, and hunt for sea shells. It was here on the beach that I decided to leave my first tag. On a chain link fence next to the road at the entrance to this little section of beach I whipped out my triad and tied it to the chain link fence. I then took a step back and took some pictures. It felt awesome. I was so proud of myself for finally going for it! (Yes I am a dork.) Of course I did have to spend the next 30 minutes explaining to Aimee what yarn bombing was and why I decided it was something I needed to do but it was worth it. I didn't label my tag- I am not quite that sophisticated yet- so I don't have any idea if anyone else has seen it or if it is already gone or whatnot but I think that this is only the beginning for me!

On a completely random note: I am sort of in the mood for Sushi. Hmm.