Imagine a city after it snows. Imagine the white blanket softening all the sharp edges, hiding the filth. Now, imagine that blanket is real.
This is something of what yarn bombing strives to do. Yarn bombers do knitting as street art- creating cozies for chain link fence – throwing lace and flowers over the harsh contours of urban life. Yarn bombers mix the illegal daring of graffiti writers with a traditionally female craft-form, making something both joyous and subversive.
In Amsterdam, I met up with Edie of the Ladies Fancywork Society. Edie’s a Denver transplant, where, with the society, she sleeved lampposts and crocheted leg warmers for the giant sculptures outside the Denver Convention Center. At the Urban Arts Fair, the Lady’s Fancywork Society had covered a bike in green crochet flowers. They were a diverse group- sex workers rights activists and gallery owners, women and men. And the crowd loved their work.
The first yarn-bombing group was Knitta Please, founded by Magda Sayeg in 2005 in Austin. Since then, yarn bombers have sprung up in dozens of cities, inspiring a book and articles in news outlets from the BBC to the New Yorker.
According to Edie, the reaction to yarn-bombing has been overwhelmingly enthusiastic. “People can’t accuse us of destroying property” she says “since they can take down a yarn bomb with a pair of scissors.” However, some more traditional knitters have criticized the bombers, saying they should spend their time knitting socks for the homeless rather than making urban art.
Edie is busy producing work in Denver and Amsterdam, where she finds herself increasingly on the right side of the authorities. “Many of my latest projects have actually been sponsored by cultural councils,” said Edie, “so they’re not technically yarn-bombing. But, they’re in the same spirit.”
Words by Molly Crabapple. Photos courtesy of the Ladies’ Fancywork Society
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