Fibrations 2018

What a beautiful exhausting day!

I gotta tell you, I ended up with blisters hauling this thing around all day, but it was super worth it! I had an amazing day MCing the event!
In case you didn't know, or haven't read my previous posts about the Fibrations festival, it's a local event put on by Knotty by Nature, a local fiber store. Ryan and Steph and members of the community (like myself) come together to create the magical fiber day!
There's dozens of vendors, and every year I get to meet a lot of amazing and talented people. It's a fantastic blast!

The (highly white, upper end of middle aged) community out in full force at the event! There were so many people this year! Maybe not the most ever, but I was so happy with the turn out!

Anyway, it was an amazing day! I was given a bunch of gifts from just wonderful vendors simply for being a great MC and information person!
Here's a photo of all the goodies I picked up!

The black and rainbow is called "Unicorn Farts" and comes from Spunwareovertherainbow (which is just the best name run by the kindest human!). And she GAVE me this wonderful skein!! I nearly died!
Then there's some books (Zines) by Caitlin Ffrench. She specializes in botanical dyes and inks, for yarn and paper and what have you. KBN paid half the fee for me to be able to take her class, and it was spectacular! I learned so much and now have some inks and watercolors made from all natural materials like seeds, barks, pieces of iron and metals!
Then Christian from Hypnoknits gave me the patch. You can't read it but it says "There is no gender in fiber craft" and it makes my heart soar!
Then I got this incredible coloring books from a vendors husband. He loves making coloring books! And I love coloring! So he gave me these! And then I bought an enamel pin from Black Cat yarns<3 p=""> and small bundled yarn there from Black Cat Yarns. The yarn is called "Unicorn Farts" as well haha!
Then I bought the little yarn crafting octopus enamel pin because it was just waaaay too cute not to.
The pink Joma yarn (now Subculture Yarn) was part of a project, where the proceeds went to help someone... with.. something... I forget, but as soon as I saw her post about it, I knew I needed to pick it up, to help the cause and to get this gorgeous pink!
Then I won the rest of the things! The amazing "Lite Brite" by Black Cat Yarns, two random crochet bowls (I felt bad for the artist as they did not have many tickets for their item), a bag of knit baby items (so do not remember entering for this... pretty sure the tickets got mixed up but whatever haha).
I also picked up a quilted pillow from Rosalie, a friend of Dela's (and honestly myself) for Lex's mom Cathy for xmas!
So yeah, just one of the best Fibrations yet! Can't wait for next year!

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.

Knotty by Nature welcoming bomb

So I went back to KBN today. The granny square pole was still up and it looked great in the daylight.
(on a side note, we rode our bikes, so this took us by the camo pole and it was still up!)

Even the door handle tag was still there, and a number of people really seemed to like them as they went into the store.
I met up with my wonder friend, and she gave me the swatches she said she would. My roommate and I then got to work stitching them together. Took about half an hour, but then we attached them to objects outside the store.

First up, the garbage can.
This was... a little smelly. But it was right beside the granny square pole, and there was not much outside their store.

I think it looks really awesome with its little band of color. The green and white square flag like thing is my favorite.

There are some interesting types of yarn/fabric that my friend has used in here. She makes little swatches to test out patterns and yarns. They end up being perfect for my sort of art.

Next I did this lovely drainpipe work. Sewing together work courtesy my roommate.

Followed by this small pole cover, because I wanted to show off Ryan's, one of the owners of Knotty by Nature, yarn bicycles by the light of day.

I think this turned out really well.
But I have learned something about yarn bombing from this project and the 21 days of yarn bombing that happened in November.
The big projects, the involving ones; those ones come across as the art they're intended to be.
So for 2012, I am looking forward to trying out more large, involving projects, and less small tags and swatches here and there.
I hope it sounds exciting!

New year of yarn bombing!

So this is year three.
Let's make this one full of awesome projects.

To start things off, I was asked by a wonderful woman if I would do a subversive yarn project to highlight the re-opening/moving of Knotty by Nature (she doesn't like the connotations surrounding the term "yarn bomb"... even yarn storm doesn't exactly sound pro yarn, so this is understandable).

Little side store on Knotty by Nature (henceforth KBN cause that is quite the thing to type each time).
They used to be located on government st, kind of downtown, a little more towards the industrial aspect of town, but located in the last little shop strip on government st that can still be called downtown.
Now, they have moved to Fairfield, which is not at all downtown. They also have propensity toward yarn covered bicycles.

Now, on to the yarn bomb! Or subversive art display that I created for KBN.

I made up about 25 granny squares for the project.
Of all the different colors I could think of and were easy to hand. I like ones that change color as you go along. They're probably my favorite (speaking of favorite yarns, Michael's was having a yarn boxing week sale and I CLEANED UP! It was so amazing! I got so much yarn for only $20!).

I also added buttons to it that have my URL... or at least sort of...

I also added a little something to their door handle. It was my gf's idea.

In this picture below, you can see the reflection says Knotty by Nature Fibre Arts. It's a very pretty store sign.

I am heading out there tomorrow to put up some more pieces.
I only have a couple granny sqaures left, but the wonderful woman who has inspired this project has offered up some pieces to help out the project. Maybe I can tag that garbage can...
If you're in the Fairfield area, you should check them out!

Happy New Year!