Tuesday, May 8, 2012

Yarnbombing the school



Not long after I learned to crochet last year, I stumbled across an amazing book at our local library. It was called Yarnbombing and it opened up a whole world that I had never heard of. The official definition of yarnbombing is "the activity of putting knitted coverings on public objects, especially secretly and without official permission". Everything about this appealed to me. Beautifying public spaces with colourful graffiti in a covert ops kind of way. How totally cool. I fantasized about sneaking into our prep playground and turning it rainbow.




Imagine my excitement to discover that the theming for this years school fete involved plans to yarnbomb the massive Moreton bay fig tree. I had no idea that so many other school mums knew how to crochet. So every Thursday we met after school and worked on a red and white piece to help dress the tree. Suddenly at Saturday ballet there were fellow crochet comrades all hooking away. The end result was an amazing collaboration.






There was a wonderful installation of rainbow pods dreamed up by another arty mum,




Trees wrapped up for winter,




And of course my little bird perch was up there too.




Despite a dreary day for the fete and a muddy oval that moved all the rides to a different part of school, all the colour made the day sing. We definitely had a great day. What with a day pass for unlimited dodgem car rides,




guinea pigs to groom,




and Liongirl finally had her wish, a whole fairy floss to herself. That beautiful vintage dress became a very sticky pink mess pretty quickly, luckily it did all wash out.



I cannot believe that Roboboy and I managed to stumble into a school that is so, well, cool.
Wouldn't it be great if we could keep up that crochet momentum and do a few more branches, maybe a different colour for each branch......... could look amazing for next years fete.




16 comments:

  1. How cool is that.....there mobile looked great on the tree all bundled up....what a great project!
    Your children are so adorable sticky and all!

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  2. Would you believe one of my sister's wore a dress made of exactly the same fabric as Liongirl's dress when she was a flower girl in the late 70's. I wish I had a pic handy to show you...Love the festive, yarnbombed tree x

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  3. Looks amazing!
    Liz @ Shortbread & Ginger

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  4. That is very cool! Fab idea for a fete. Stones Corner gets yarn bombed most winters. x

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  5. The tree looks fantastic!
    What a cool school.

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  6. I love how you all hooked up via crochet. The nanna force is strong in these ones! The cookies are well within your range of ability too. Easy Peasy! We should hook up before I hit HOCA!

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  7. That is one cool school and what a great group of Mums you have to hang out with and crochet, I would love to do something like that. Oh Liongirl she is a happy little one, I can see the excitement all over her face getting to eat all of that fairy floss, yummo. Love her dress, I think I may have had one of those when I was little:) xx

    P.S. I just wanted to say thank you so much for all of your kind and wise words I am so grateful to have lovely ladies like you to offer words of support like you did for me. xx

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  8. Ah, so that's what's called. I've seen crocheted squares around street signs in the city and I used to giggle to myself as a I thought there was a fellow crocheter our there wanting to leave their mark.
    Those drawers are fab!

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  9. Yeah! What a cool school!!

    New to my school this year I haven't met any other crochet mums yet but I'm sure their out there!

    Those trees look brilliant, Great job ladies...

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  10. Very cool. Such variety too, lots of fun I bet.

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  11. OH my goodness you must go to the school nearby me, a friend of mine was teaching yarn bombing to the school for their fete recently, how funny to see it on your blog :-) I lve the hearts hanging from the tree

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  12. I'll bet Ive seen you in those opshops and not known it was you ;-)

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  13. I love driving past on my way to storytime at the library, You probably know Chaska and Edda right?

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  14. too fabulous for my eyes! x yarn bombing is the best x

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