Green Thing Blog

(Image: yarnbombing)

When I was in school, I must have been about 8 or 9 years old, we were taught how to knit. However I lacked the necessary skillz with the needles and gave up after all I could manage was a thin unraveling scarf in one colour and everyone one else was onto complicated stripy jumpers. Today's story about awesome urban knitting makes me regret my younger self's lack of determination.

Knitfitti, Urban Knitting, Yarnbombing or Guerrilla Knitting (whatever name you want to use) is a movement to brighten up and soften the urban landscape through the art of knitting, using leftover lengths of wool. In 2005 a group of women in Texas were discussing what to do with their unloved and unused knitting and crochet projects and from that discussion this brainwave was born and they began to make little knitted jumpers for lampposts, trees, street signs, railings, bridges, everything and anything really! Brightening up their towns and cities and making the community smile.

(Image: Squidoo)

Some people have begun to incorporate plants into the knitted pieces to add an extra bit of lovely to brightening up a city. The softly wrapped plants are very sweet and are the next step in yarnbombing. By using low maintenance and hard wearing types of plants the projects have been successful in getting people to smile. This craze is being called plantbombing and it is a combination of guerrilla gardening and guerrilla knitting.

(Image: Jaymi Heimbuch)

Got the knitting bug? Here are some tips on how to get started. For those with more knitting experience read these tips on plant pockets for your own garden! More interested in guerrilla gardening? Flash, Bang, Whollop is the way to go.

(Spotted on Treehugger)

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