Yarn bombing

Yarn bomb flower

To Yarn Bomb – Yarn bombing, yarnbombing, yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting or graffiti knitting is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colourful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre rather than paint or chalk.

Our lunch time knitting sessions have a new focus and we are knitting and crocheting with a view to a departmental yarn bomb. The project has inspired non-knitters to pick up needles and non-knitters and non-crocheters to start making pom poms.

It’s one of life’s small pleasures to see somebody who has always wanted to be knitter discovering the magic that 2 sticks and a ball of wool can create.

Knitting paper chains

In our working lives success is measured in meeting targets, exceeding goals, being innovative and proactive and above all, doing our jobs well. Knitting isn’t all that different except as the holder of the needles you get to be the boss. You set the goals, you choose the pattern (beginner, intermediate, advanced), you choose your wool and then it’s all up to you. Your workforce is comprised of balls of yarn and a needle or two and it’s up to you to make them work.

Not everything will be a success. I have jumpers with one arm longer than the other, hats that are too large for a human head, a sock with no foot in it (that’s the most tricky part) and more Granny Squares that challenge the concept of ‘square’ than I can count. Yet each of these attempts are one step closer to the perfect jumper, hat, sock and square. I can’t say that I’ve mastered all of the above but I am perfectly happy to keep trying to meet my own targets.Our yarn bombing project is a truly collaborative endeavour and the enthusiasm for it seems unstoppable. Watch this space.

What Knitting Can Teach Us About Parenting

This is an interesting article that begins with a discussion on how wonderful some knitting websites are and how, on the whole, people are generous with their time, their ideas and their positive comments. It then draws a harsh parallel with the practical issues surrounding parenting. The article pays attention to the harsh criticism and parent shaming that seems to be rife on social media sites where it seems perfectly acceptable to be downright rude about somebody’s children and where the old adage ‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all’ has been abandoned in favour of harsh, unmeasured criticism.

This is perhaps a rather unorthodox way of talking about parenting but it does make sense. As parents we create our children, they become our great project, knitted up with care and love into what we hope will be our finest work, a work to be admired, cherished and loved for many years to come. What then would we do if others set out to pick apart this project and begin to unravel the good work? I guess we re-knit. We pick up the stitches and carry on.

I am often in awe of great knitters but maybe we just don’t take enough time to be in awe of great parenting, or perhaps more importantly, we seem to have plenty of time for parent shaming.

You can read this article at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/25/well/family/the-opposite-of-publicly-shaming-parents-knitting.html