Friday, April 29, 2011

A Little Yarn Bombing



A couple of weeks ago I did a little private yarn bombing project.  I was inspired by someone near and dear to me who had been doing a lot of work with rocks in her yard. Once the idea struck me, I couldn't wait to do this.





OK, so I covered 4 rocks and one brick, for a little extra humor.  
  



I began with this rock and it remains my favorite.  This one is crocheted. I made up the design as I went along, "engineering" it to fit.  



It was a fun challenge to figure out how to crochet something to fit around an ovoid.  








The rest were just rectangles that I knit on relatively large needles and sewed closed around the rocks.  I decided to make plastic tags for each rock that said 1/5, 2/5, etc., so that my victim could figure out that there were five to find.  When I placed them in her yard, some were more obvious than others .



When I am surrounded by rocks like these -



...it really doesn't seem THAT bizarre to cover rocks with fuzzy yarn.


To see some really amazing yarn bombing projects, check out yarnbombing.com.  One recent project that is particularly stunning is shown in the post http://yarnbombing.com/hello-spring.  I'd love to know how they got the fire department to help with the installation!


Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Wooly Peeps



Rock star peep

Not too long ago Craft Magazine posted a link on Facebook to a very clever Easter-y project by radmegan  - needle-felted Peeps!  What a great idea!  Luckily my thoughtful cousin re-posted the post and tagged me.  I bought the instructions from radmegan on Etsy and had quite some fun.  I'd forgotten how great needle felting is.  Except for the pain from occasionally poking my finger...

I was lucky enough to take a needle-felting class by the amazing Moxie several years ago, so I had amassed the necessary tools -

foam block and sharp-as-heck felting needles
wool roving

By the way, Moxie has foam blocks that are biodegradable, which is very cool. This one is from a kit that Weaving Works sold that included needles.  I came upon this multi-colored roving in the knitter's guild booth at the craft fair held out in Ocean Shores over Thanksgiving weekend.  You can buy single colors from sources like Weaving Works.


So, it was obvious that whereas radmegan's peeps were true to the real Peep colors, mine were going to be funky.


This handful of roving -



equaled this peep - 

Tropical sherbet peep?

A few more -

Tie-dye peep for my cousin  :)



Peep gang




Then one last design that I HAD to try - 

skully peep


Rock star photo of skully peep