Week 6 - Bombing a Train

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! ;)