International Yarn Bombing Day 2018

So, if you google IYBD, it says that the day is June 11th every year, regardless of when it falls during the week. There are other people that celebrate it the same day as World Wide Knit in Public Day (WWKIPD), which is the second Saturday in June (I think).
Either way, I don't think the date means as much as it used to. I think the idea remains tho. Some people and some groups are still doing it, but yarn bombing as a whole seems to have passed out of popularity.
I still enjoy it a lot. It's still my favourite thing to crochet.

So a bit of back story with this years yarn bomb.
When I ride the bus home, the bus has this thing that talks and announces the road that you're about to be at. Near my house, there is a road called Belcher Ave. Every time I would go past it, I would laugh to myself, thinking about Bob's Burgers and the Belcher family. Then it dawned on me that I should do a Bob's Burgers yarn bomb for IYBD.

I didn't end up doing Gene, cause there were only two street signs and cause I ran out of time (I mostly did not start soon enough, like I do every year pretty much).
I am really proud of my Tina and my Bob. I really like his apron.

So today (which to be fair, is neither WWKIPD or June 11th), I walked down to Belcher Ave and yarn bombed it!
First, I put Tina and Louise at one end.

And then I put Bob and Linda at the other end.

Bob and Linda did not go up as easy as Tina and Louise. But I feel like this was a successful yarn bomb!
I think I will keep dong IYBD, so long as I can keep coming up with ideas. I still have to do my library lego man idea. Even if all I do is one yarn bomb a year, I wanna still keep doing it as much as I can. I love my crochet Belcher family.


P.S. Did you know that my granny squares are still up at Knotty by Nature? from 2012? I grabbed another photo when I was there on Saturday. Can you believe the comparison?? I mean, it has been 6 years. I'm still so happy they're still there.

International Yarn bombing day 2017

Well, I didn't get a chance to do anything for IYBD this year.
To be honest, I feel like the event has really lost steam. I didn't see any Facebook events for it from the creator or any of the organizations that took it up in the past couple years. There weren't even a lot of posts on Instagram.
But that's ok. Yarn bombing has taken on many different guises over the years since it's original inception, and yarn art is a constant evolving thing.
I did however participate in Worldwide Knit (and crochet) in Public Day, which was June 10th.I couldn't remember if IYBD took place on the Saturday or Sunday of the 9th, 10th, or 11th weekend in June, so it was nice to at least be involved with some kind of yarn event for this weekend.
It took place in my community at Knotty by Nature, a wonderful fiber arts store that has always been great to me. I help them out whenever I can, and the owners are truly kind to me.
When they first opened up, their new shop (they moved from downtown Victoria to out by Ross Bay Cemetery) in 2012, I welcomed them to their new location by yarn bombing their store location. You can see the post I did about it from back then here. They came in the next day to see that I had left them a wonderful yarn bombed store and they were super excited and happy about it. They did their best to maintain a number of the pieces for as long as they could.
So imagine my surprise when I discovered that one of the pieces is still there! After 5 long years, plus a little bit more, it's still there! Incredibly weather worn, much like the hearts from my last post.

I am amazed that any of the color has remained. It's obviously super weathered.
It brought my heart such joy to see it there tho. And to see so many people attending the worldwide knit it public event.
While I didn't put out a crazy awesome epic yarnbomb for IYBD, so many of the people I knew commented on the epic one I did at the park across the way for IYBD in 2012, my second year participating, where I made the incredible crocheted picnic for Hollywood park. So if nothing else, it is great to be remembered for one of my best works. I hope to do another epic feast of crochet food someday. It is by far one of my favorite things to make out of yarn and really all fibers (I enjoy my needle felted sushi too). In fact, I was crocheting a hotdog for a friend during the worldwide knit in public day event!
I hope you enjoy all these throw back pieces I have been discovering. Hopefully I will continue to yarnbomb in the future, even if it has largely gone out of style.

International Yarnbombing Day 2016 - Where's Waldo?

This year, international yarnbombing day snuck up on me again. But unlike last year, I remembered in time! I remembered with about two weeks to spare, just as I got a new job.

So I wanted to do something cool, but something I could execute in a reasonable amount of time.

Perfect opportunity to do my Where's Waldo project!

So I spent two weeks cranking out a Waldo based off the very first book from 1987, where Waldo has 12 accoutrements that he loses throughout the book! So I made a Waldo with a cup, snorkel, binoculars, kettle, sleeping bag, shovel, backpack, camera, hammer, bag, belt and walking stick.

The plan was to wander around downtown Victoria and take pictures of random, not necessarily easy to guess locations and have Waldo lose an item at each one. I sorta did that, and chronicled it on Instagram.

First, I stopped at Terroir, the amazing tea salon on Fort st. They were having a tea tasting with the tea harvester from Taiwan.

I enjoyed amazing teas, done at different temperatures than normal, and there were so many different flavors! I digress, but it was delicious.

Waldo left his cup behind after we enjoyed our tea.
Next, we ended up in Centennial Square. Waldo decided to try out his snorkel in the pool.

But then he left his snorkel there as we headed off to the next venue.

We decided to get some chocolate from this awesome chocolate shop just off Fan Tan Alley. Waldo was using his binoculars to look around the shop, put them down, and promptly forgot them.

After our delicious chocolates, we crossed Market Square and headed onto LoJo. We ducked into the shopping arcade, where there's a secret garden Waldo and I hung out in.

Waldo thought this would be the perfect place to make some tea. He took out his kettle and was half way through before I told him that he couldn't do that here!

(This picture is a real "where's Waldo")

He ended up forgetting his kettle. I feel kind of responsible for that one.

After we left the arcade, Waldo mentioned being hungry. I decided we should head to Trounce Alley and eat some tapas.

After Tapas, Waldo was sleepy. He pulled out his sleeping bag to nap, but I told him we had to continue on. In our haste to leave, he left his sleeping bag behind.

As we were walking along, Waldo caught a magnificent scent. It turned out that we were walking past Lush. We wandered in and smelled a bunch of their bath bombs. Waldo decided to whip out his shovel and dig away at one of the bath bombs, but couldn't really crack them.

It ended up getting stuck and he had to leave it behind.

After that we wanted to go take a look at the ocean. Walking the promenade, we stopped to take a look as the water-planes were taking off.

Waldo took off his backpack to get a better look up on the rail. When he climbed back down, he just forgot to put it back on.

As we continued walking along, we came across the statues that I yarnbombed back for the very first International Yarnbombing day in 2011. I explained to Waldo how I had turned the statues into Katamari characters. He wanted to take a picture with the statues to commemorate the yarnbombing.

He ended up leaving his camera there though, so I guess I won't be getting those pictures.

On our way back downtown, we passed a lot of construction. Waldo decided that he could really help the workers out as they weren't working on a Saturday.

He lost track of his mallet before he could really fix anything however.

Suddenly! Waldo and I ended up in London!

Just kidding. We were just in Nootka Court, where there is an English style phone box. Waldo decided to try it out, as everyone uses cell phones nowadays. He took off his bag while he was in there and didn't grab it on his way out.

Also while in Nootka Court, we checked out the beautiful totem pole they have in the garden.
Waldo didn't realize his belt had come off now that it wasn't holding up all his various tools.

The belt was left behind as well.

With only his walking stick left in his possession, the Bug Zoo caught Waldo's eye.
I mentioned to him that they would definitely have walking stick bugs in there. He wanted to compare the two so we did.

His walking stick was pretty much as big as a real walking stick insect.

In his haste at comparing the two however, Waldo ended up leaving his walking stick behind at the bug zoo.

With no accoutrements left, Waldo and I decided to head on home.
We traveled by bus and as my stop approached, I thought Waldo was with me, but alas, he remained on the bus.

Where's Waldo now??

All in all, it was a really fun day full of great adventure. I hope you had fun looking for Waldo too.
Happy International Yarnbombing day for 2016!

International Yarnbombing Day 2014

Hello! And welcome to another amazing edition of International Yarn Bombing Day!!!

I will admit, this event is getting less and less attention as the years go by, but I still enjoy doing it! 2011 was my first year, where I just tagged a dozen things. Then the next year, 2012 was the epic picnic! Then 2013 was the Adventure time piece in the park, and this year is....


Pokemon!

Ok, so I originally wanted to do the original 150 Pokemon! But that got hard really quick with school and relationships and everything else life throws at you, so here's the 16 or so Pokemon I did make, and some pokeballs.

First there is Cubone in the grass



Then Diglett and Dugtrio in the dirt so they can dig around!



Then Electrode was looking for electricty at this lamp post




These Exeggcute are just looking for some fun




Ghastly is just hanging around this tree



Grimer is happiest where there is garbage and gunk



Jigglypuff will sing to you as you relax in the park



Koffing is hanging around outside the Men's room, enjoying the weird smells emanating from within



Magickarp doesn't do so well outside of water, so I put them in the water fountain



Ninetails was just prancing around the field



Tiny Oddish!


(their little leaves were felt)

Shellder needed a drink



Voltorb needed a jolt too!




One of my personal favorites was this adorable Weepingbell. I hung it from a tree!



And Weezing was hanging out with Koffing by the Women's room.



I also made a Cloyster (which I kept cause it ended up looking epic and I seriously couldn't part with it) and several of the eveevolutions, that I ended up sending to a friend for their birthday.

All of these pokemon were super small. Like, smaller than your hand in most cases, with Ninetails being the biggest (and taking freaking forever to make!)

Here are some of the Pokeballs that I hid around too. I wanted them to be fun to find, like the Pokemon.

I wish I could have done more, but what I did do was super well received! There were all gone in no time. While some part of me is happy people like them enough to take them home, it would be nice if people left them for other people to enjoy.

Feminist theories have really made yarn bombing difficult on so many levels. But I do so love making crochet things for people to enjoy!

Bonus: Here is the Cloyster I kept