Get involved with Park Your Yarn

I’m looking for people to make pieces for our new knit graffiti commission Park Your Yarn.  I am working with Rachael Gwilliam from Art Yarn and Wolverhampton Art Gallery to transform St Peters Gardens in Wolverhampton.

For this I am planning to cover 15 benches which are dotted around the gardens.  As ever I need your help to knit pieces.  If you are interested in taking part there are a serious of drop in workshops over the next 3 weeks in various locations around Wolverhampton.

If you can’t make it to any of the workshops but will still like to make pieces please get in touch info@stitchesandhos.co.uk

For more information and full workshop schedule please visit the project’s dedicated tumblr site http://parkyouryarn.tumblr.com/

 

knit graffiti Birmingham

Yesterday I fulfilled a long held ambition to do some knit graffiti on the streets of Birmingham.

Our little knitting hootenanny was originally inspired by the work of Knitta Please. Credited with starting the knit graffiti movement Knitta Please started tagging their local environment with pieces of knitting.  When I saw my first Knitta image I knew that I wanted to do some here in Brum.

The years passed (yes years),  I talked about doing some knit graffiti but never seemed to find the time to actually get it done.  My inspiration was a conversation I had with Sam Underwood at a party in January.  He told me that he was taking a year long sabbatical to concentrate on his music and to work on those ideas that you never quite find the time for when working.  I thought, if Sam could give up work for a year, I could get my arse in gear to do some knit graffiti.

So I put a call out to the Facebook group, rounded up the ladies who helped with the knit graffiti event at The Public and went in to town with my notebook and tape measure.

I originally thought that the Bullring would make an excellent target.  Large public statue – check, lots of street furniture – check, iconic building that could do with some wool love – check and double check. I sent out my measurements to everyone and we started knitting.  Just a couple of weeks before our installation date a large set of hoardings went up at the Bullring cutting off many of our identified targets.  A small spanner in the works but we weren’t going to let that get in our way.

So yesterday morning I got up at 5am and met the group to tag.  We started off at the Bullring Bull. We hadn’t been there more than 15mins when a security guard came out to tell us to stop as we were on private property.  When we explained what we were doing hoping he’d let us get on our merry way, I was told that the Bullring owners, Hammerson “wouldn’t like this kind of thing”.

The security guard tried to make me delete my photos on my camera.  When I refused, I was told that publishing the photos would make be liable.  Now I understand that vandalism is a punishable offence but surely a piece of removable knitted graffiti doesn’t count as vandalism.  It was clear that the security guard was going to stick to his rule book, so we took our pieces and left.

At this point we were disheartened, we’d all spent a lot of time making our pieces and now they wouldn’t see the light of day.  So we rallied and decided that Birmingham wasn’t just the Bullring, there was a whole city centre to find new homes for our pieces.

We walked the city centre streets and tagged what we could find – St Phillips Cathedral grounds, Union St, postboxes, road signs and Waterloo St.  Our pièce de résistance was tagging ‘The River’ better known as Floozy in the Jacuzzi.

After 2 hours we’d used up all our pieces.  There was only 1 thing left to do – head back to mine for a celebratory bacon sandwich whilst we looked through photos of our exploits.

And now you can have a look too.

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I would like to say a MASSIVE thank you to everyone who made pieces and installed – Sara Nicklin, Emily McDonough-Scott, Amanda Lawrence, Beccy Lawrence, Sarah Bett, Rebecca Emery.  And finally to Sam – thanks for giving me the inspiration to get on and do it

stitches and hos knit graffiti

It has been an ambition of mine to pay homage to one of Stitches and Hos’ inspirations Knitta. So when we were invited to host a day at The Knitting Salon I knew it was the perfect opportunity to do some knit graffiti.

So, on Saturday myself and some of my knitting chums went over to West Bromwich to take over The Knitting Salon at The Public.

We spent the day attaching our pieces of preprepared knitting to the building, trees and outdoor seats.

Here are some pictures of what we got up to

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If you’re over at The Public before 30 October why don’t you see if you can spot all of the pieces of knit graffiti.

Hopefully we’ll get the opportunity to do some more knit graffiti.  It was loads of fun – especially the great reaction we got from the people of West Bromwich.

I would like to say a big thank you to the team – Emily, Hamble, Nicola, Amanda, Catherine and Tia who all made such wonderful pieces of knitting to tag The Public.  I would also like to say a big thank you to all of the staff at The Public who were really helpful.

stitches and hos @ The Public

As you can see I’ve been getting friendly with my needles over the past couple of weeks.  It’s all in preparation for our knit graffiti event at The Public, West Bromwich this Saturday.

Myself and a motley crew of guerilla knitters will be tagging The Public and The Knitting Salon in homage to Knitta (one of stitches and hos inspirations).  We’ll be in the main foyer on Saturday 16 October from 11 – 4pm.

Why don’t you come along and join in the fun. For more details visit here.

 

stitches and hos knit graffiti

Stitches and hos have been invited to host one Saturday at The Knitting Salon at The Public.

The Knitting Salon is a project by Trevor Pitt.  Trevor has worked with groups of knitters around the country to produce a flock of knitted benches.  The benches are then housed in the salon where people can come along and get advice about their knitting.

As well as giving out a bit of knitting advice, a small guerilla faction will be paying homage to one of stitches and hos’ inspirations, Knitta.  We’ll be tagging The Public and West Bromwich with knitted graffiti.  As you can see from the picture I’ve been firing up my needles in preparation.

We’ll be at The Public on Saturday 16 October, 11 – 4pm.  For more information visit the event page here.  Why don’t you come along and join the knitted chaos.

Stitches and Hos needs you!

I’m looking for a small group of knitters to take part in an event I’m planning at The Public in West Bromwich.

S&H have been asked by Trevor Pitt to take over the gallery for a day.  I thought this would be the perfect opportunity for some yarn bombing a la S&H hero Knitta .

To take part you need to be free on Saturday 16 October (times TBA) and be able to get to West Bromwich under your own steam. S&H may be able to cover the cost of travel (train or meto tickets).

If you are interested in getting involved please email me info[at]stitchesandhos.co.uk no later than 3 September 2010 for more information.