While we were away I crocheted some hours away, making colourful striped pieces out of my scrap yarn. I had something in particular in mind for them so I made them a certain width...

When I yarn bombed the Library last month, I noticed a spring-looking bike rack out the front and at the time thought, 'oooh, that would be a good one to yarn bomb!' but I had already created my piece for the tree so I didn't think anything more of it. Another time when running errands in my home town, I walked past a Youth Info Centre and it had the very same style of bike rack out the front! And what a great place to yarn bomb - a Youth Centre, a yarn bomb would surely make someone smile here!
I added this to the 'To Bomb' List in my mind but didn't really plan anything in particular 'til now.

I've been feeling I should do a slightly bigger project than I have been doing....It was time....and besides that, I've been inspired by some amazingly talented ladies of Yarn Corner.

I made 4 different panels for this piece, finishing them today and stitching them together.

I like the randomness of one colour ending and another one starting. This is intentional and is the result of me using up scrap yarn as mentioned earlier. I also experimented with pattern, making some rows of shells to funk it up! :P
.....
After sewing my pieces together, I wondered how I could make it a bit more 3D and tactile. I had some bright coloured stars that I had crocheted a few weeks back, 6 of them, and had no particular use for them. They would look great hanging from this piece! :D

It was getting dark and I wanted this installed today because I've been lagging a bit behind with my yarn bombing challenge lately and I wanted to get ahead again. I jumped in the car and headed out, under the cover of twilight ;)
There were more people out than I thought there would be and I think I turned up right when the library was closing for the night. (The youth centre is a few doors down from the library) So plenty of people were about. But not too close to me so I just put myself in my own little world and began sewing my piece to the bike rack.
It occurred to me after I'd already left the house that I'd need something to pin it up with but I'd forgotten to bring anything. 'Ah well, I'll just wing it,' I thought, and I did. I found some twigs on the ground and used them to hold the edges together. It felt great using nature to help me! :D

I think it took me about 20 minutes to sew the whole thing up. I was kneeling on concrete and my knees were hurting. I was pretty impressed with how it was turning out (except it was a bit looser than I would have liked)
It was almost fully dark by the time I finished and I couldn't even see anything in the viewfinder of my camera. I had to just snap with the flash on and hope for the best.

almost done...

The photos are a bit blurry so I will go back tomorrow and get some better shots in the daylight......
And here they are (1/3/12)

I also added my little trademark leftover yarn bow....on the entrance door handle! :P cheeky!

For Michelle T and anyone else interested, here is a pattern for these stars! Enjoy! x x

This week, I finally got my tags printed and laminated so now I can tag my work! Wooot! So, I made this week's piece using the colours of my tag and blog to kick start my tagging. :D

I started making a random granny square using just the colours, without too much planning in mind for what it would become and where it would end up. I Double Crocheted (US terms) a round of each colour. I got to the purple and thought it needed more of the blue, so I added 3 more rounds of the blue and Ooooooooooh, I could do an orange scalloped edge with a red Single Crochet finish! 

We went away for the weekend to stay in Blairgowrie.

 Blairgowrie is located on a thin strip of the Mornington Peninsula, facing Port Phillip Bay in the north and Bass Strait in the south, nestled between the popular beach resorts of Rye and Sorrento. (http://www.travelvictoria.com.au/blairgowrie/)

... A friend loaned us a holiday house there, to stay in for a few nights. On the way there (an hour drive) I finished off the piece and proudly attached the tag. :)

Yesterday on the way home, I informed my Hubby. "We have to stop somewhere so I can put this up, I have to leave this here in Blairgowrie." I was thinking of a pole, not too thin but not too fat and crisscrossing the yarn around the back to attach it. I wanted to put it near the shops somewhere but unfortunately it was wherever dear husband felt like stopping the car. :P Not too far down the road from the beach house, he spotted some 1/2 height wooden poles just the right thickness for my bomb and pulled over. "Why not!?" I said and jumped out of the car, needle and LONG thread already attached to the piece.
The awesome thing is, that because I wasn't alone this time, I now have photos of me installing it! :D
Kamran snapped the photos and said to Nazeem (3) in the backseat, "Mummy's a hippy Nazeem." lol






















Excuse the ridiculous attire! I don't usually wear leggings with short tops! lol. I was dressed comfy for the trip home, and forgot that I'd be getting out of the car for this! :P But here I am stringing it up!

Cars were driving past left, right and center but I realised yarn bombing had become normal for me and no longer had an adrenaline rush attached. Still fun none the less! I heard Kamran turn the car off at some point too, must have been taking too long. Hehehe.
Before I was done, I went back to the car for my scissors to cut off the excess yarn. I then brought the scissors back to the car and said to Kamran. "One minute, I just have to tie the extra yarn somewhere...It's sort of become my trademark." I hadn't thought about it before that moment but I'd done it once before and it just seemed right!

There! Done! See how it compliments the tag!? ;)

Guess who else is becoming used to my yarn bombing? My son. "Wow Mummy, So beautiful," he said when I got back in the car. :D

Forgive me followers for I have sinned. It's been 13 days since my last yarn bomb! (9 days since it's corresponding blog post) :P Well actually I am not late with this yarn bomb and post, my previous bombs have been early, so I had a little time up my sleeve ;) 
This yarn bomb has been in the making for a while. Not because it's taken me that long to make but because I have so many ideas for these bombs that I just work away at them, play around with hooks and yarn for a while and sometimes have trouble deciding which one to do, when! 
So I have been playing around with this one for a while but chose it for this week's yarn bomb and finished it off today. 



The suburb I live in has a lot of these hydrant taps around. 

Not sure why there are so many of them but I have never noticed them (or at least this type) anywhere else. This particular one appealed to me though because of it's location in the middle of a shopping precinct, it's bright red paint and the vibrant colour of the the shrub beneath. However, it was screaming out for something else! :P 
I can't remember when the idea first came to me but at some point I decided I wanted to crochet water droplets and hang them from it. 


You know, there is a bit of a process to this yarn bombing gig. I took this photo about a month ago when I was driving around town looking for ideas of things to yarn bomb. 
First: you find an object to yarn bomb. ie hydrant.
Second: you decide what to bomb it with. ie crochet water drops.
Third: you measure your object (yes you have to actually go and measure before you make!!) and find out how to make said yarn bomb. ie look up patterns or develop your own.
Fourth: you make the bomb (and this could take several evenings, lunch breaks and so on and so forth) 
Fifth: you drop the bomb, aka installation.
And for me there is a Sixth step which is blogging about it. 
This is why one 'yarn bomb' can span several weeks from beginning to end. Which brings me to the realisation that there is also a Seventh step: you drive past it several times a week 'til it's no longer there! I LOVE that bit! 


Three of my 7 yarn bombs are still where they were installed {including today's} Two were installed in places I am not able to see again {airport and train} so I don't know if they are still there. And two were taken down {library and my neighbour's tree} I'm so stoked each time I see the ones that are still up. The bus stop one, my 2nd ever yarn bomb is still there 6 weeks later, even though the bus shelter itself was recently removed!!! Makes me smile every time I drive past it. I hope it makes someone new smile each day!


Anyway, getting back to this weeks yarn bomb....here it is

I went and measured this one day (Third step) so that I could make the red ring which the drops are attached to. I decided on fishing line to attach the drops rather than using yarn so that  it did not distort the shape of the drops at all. 
Hehe, I'm very happy with it and you know what? I consider this one original and a work of art. 
This one is not about making a dull object beautiful and it doesn't say anything much other than water comes out of taps lol but it is "the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others." Britannica Online.

Here's a pic of it before installation for a better understanding of the piece itself. 

*Dedicated to Yvette* Thanks for your comment on last week's post. ;) 

Uh oh! I'm losing motivation....but not for the yarn bombing itself, for the blogging! I like sharing my yarn bombing adventures but I think the trouble is that I don't know if anyone is actually reading about it. I need you to comment so I know you have been and you're following. :) ...hmm, seems like the blog post a week is more of a challenge than the actual yarn bombing. It's taken me 5 days to blog this week's bomb! ....I'm probably still coming down from the high of it!

On Sunday I caught a train to the city to meet up with the lovely Yarn Corner Community (a 'collective of yarn bombing artists'). I had put dibs on a couple of free 'learn to yarn bomb' kits for my interested friends and had volunteered to collect them for them at the meet. I had wanted to go anyway but being in the city, I probably would have talked myself out of it had I not volunteered to pick up the kits. I'm glad I did because I really enjoyed it. Sitting around a big table in a hippy-esque cafe with 15 or so other women, all crocheting/knitting, chatting and dining together, what could be better? I had to giggle; when I approached the cafe, I couldn't see the sign to identify it, but it turned out I didn't need to because through the door, the first thing I got was a face full of yarn which was piled 2 ft high on the nearest table! :P

I hadn't planned to yarn bomb this day. After leaving the meet I got on the train, as you do, sat down to continue where I had left off with my crochet and had a massive light bulb moment. *gasp* 'I'll yarn bomb the train while I'm sitting here!'
I knew I had almost an hour, surely that was plenty of time to whip something up....a cosy hand grip for one of the poles, and oh, the colour of the yarn I had with me, happened to match the seat upholstery perfectly!

Adrenaline started to flow. I measured the pole first, from my seat... I don't know if anyone was watching me do this, I didn't pay any attention but I did imagine what one might think if they saw me - must have thought I was a nutcase! The train wasn't packed by any stretch of the imagination, it was probably at an 8th capacity.
I began to crochet like a bat out of hell (coz bats crochet) and the adrenaline was pumping. I had the speed wobbles! I was probably sweating and looking like a mad woman! All I would have had to do was rock back and forth and talk to myself and I would have completed the picture! LOL
I imagined myself sewing it up on the pole and bolting out the doors of the train at my station, making it just in time. That wasn't far wrong, about 2 minutes from it....

I wasn't watching the clock, I was watching the stations to try and gauge how much time I had left. Once I had finished a rectangular piece, a little more than palm width, I felt I had time to make a decoration for it. I decided against a flower, as I've already done a pole-cosy with a flower on it in week 2. Instead I decided on a star and thought I'd sew it on applique style. I tried to remember how to make a star from a ring of 20 double crochets, but as I went, I discovered that I wasn't spacing the points out far enough and ended up with about 6 points instead of 5 and being too close together they were all gathered up. In the end I'd made a pointy-petaled flower rather than a star, but there was no time to redo it so it had to suffice. In fact there was hardly time to sew it onto the cosy. I trembled from adrenaline as I worked, fretting that I wouldn't get it done in time!!! 'QUICK hands, work faster!!!' My heart was racing and I pathetically sewed the star-come-flower on. I didn't even sew in the yarn end, just hoped it would be hidden!

One and a half stops from my station, I whipped it up onto the pole and began furiously sewing up! I was aware of 2 or 3 people watching and smirked nervously but once again pretended they weren't there and kept going. I tied it off, stuffed all my things into my bags and leaped up towards the doors. Embarrassingly we weren't quite as close to my station as I had thought and I had to stand there and be stared at for about 2 minutes {although it seemed like 20!}
Another lady got up and stood by the same door. "That looks nice there," she said. I just smiled. "How long have you been doing it?" she asked, to which I replied,
 "Which? Crocheting or Yarn Bombing?" {hehehehe}

{this is my unsuccessful attempt to capture a pic of it from outside the train}

An hour long adrenaline rush left me with a stomach ache! LOL ah the things we do for a smile! ;)

Gosh I am busy this week! My son's 3rd Birthday Party is on the weekend and I have been making decorations for the big day. I haven't picked up a crochet hook for over a week but...luckily...I already had my piece ready to go for this week! :D I had it ready a couple of weeks ago in fact but I knew it was going to be a tricky one to install. PLUS, I couldn't decide where to drop this particular bomb! I knew I wanted to bomb a Kindergarten with this piece but I had 2 Kinders in mind to choose from. And I don't do well with choices!

This piece is a spider web, aka a doily which, when installed, is meant to look like a spider web. {I played around with the idea of crocheting or sewing a spider onto the web but I was pretty sure about my feeling that I preferred it without. It just seemed more serious and more beautiful with a bit of mystery involved and I can't say why, but I felt rather strongly about that.}
The Kinder near my house, has a fence about 3 feet high which is made of wooden planks - three planks that run horizontally with space between. Installing the spider web on this fence would require some drawing pins to attach the strands to. (Does any of this make sense?)
The Kinder near my work, has cyclone fencing which would be much easier for me to attach the strands to. The girls at work have been suggesting objects and places for me to bomb, near work so they can see.
Regardless of all things to consider, what was the deciding factor in the end was merely, being in the right place at the right time...

On Tuesday night, I planned to go at twilight and bomb the Kinder near home. But I got busy with birthday biz and left it too late. I knew it would take some time to string up and I didn't want to get stuck in the dark with no witnesses about in case some thugs rocked up and bashed the living daylights out of me for my yarn! :P So I took it to work the next day thinking I might get a chance to drop it on my lunch break at the Kindy around the corner from there {the one with the cyclone fencing} And that's just what I did!

I asked one of my colleagues, Ms Taryn to come with me as I thought I might need some help but aside from that little fact, I would be bombing in broad daylight so I just didn't want to be alone!
We walked around the premises suspiciously {or not, but it adds and element of suspense!} looking for the right spot for maximum visibility. Once decided, I got to work as tho I had been paid to do so, ya know, like I do this every week ;)
It was still School Holidays on Tuesday and I don't think Kinders are open on School hols so I didn't know anyone was there...

I strung up my Spider web in a trial and error, work-it-out-as-you-go kind of way....I'm not sure I like the result but that's the artist within, being my harshest critic I suppose. I'll tell you why after some pics...

..because it looks like a star! the strands turned out in the shape of a star, and then there is one random strand sticking up the top, where I started, that doesn't fit in with the rest of the strands. I wanted one strand coming from each of the points because that's how spider webs are made, but it was easier said than done. I was on my lunch break too and was running out of time. I LOVE however, how the doily itself looks with the points stretched out like that. This part of it is exactly how I imagined it should be. So generally, I do like it and you know what? No-one else knows {well except you} that it's not exactly as I'd envisioned it. :D

That's not the end of the story though... A friend of mine who happens to live in the same town as this Kindy,  informed me that her daughter attended there just last year. She recognised it in the photo that I put on facebook and happened to be 'friends' with the Kinder Teacher on Facebook! So she tagged her in the photo, and this is what, to my delight, she had to say:
"l am one of the kinder teachers from that preschool. Saw you finishing it up yesterday- thanks for the donation. We had no idea what the heck you were doing or why. I was driving home thinking this is going to get some talk happening. Thanks!"

There is a reason I wanted to drop this bomb at a Kindergarten, and that is to enchant and delight the children. :D