postcard

This is a work in progress.

I’ve been hibernating a little this fall and winter. There’s been a lot going on in my personal life so yarnbombing has taken a back seat. But I started to get the itch for it again last weekend and started working on a crocheted chevron pattern that uses up my leftover yarn. Even though I consider crocheting to be easier than knitting, I’m much slower at it. It’s kind of nice to have my hands do a little something different though.

Since its pretty cold and snowy outside right now I’m not sure if I’ll be putting this up any time soon (I should have done it a few weeks ago when it was 50 degrees out!). But we shall see. My plan is to make enough colorful yarnbombs to cover every large light pole next to the alleys on my street. The street is cut off on both ends by two more major streets and so only goes about 5 blocks. I haven’t counted all the poles but I don’t think it would be all that hard to accomplish.

I put more tiles up over the weekend on a curb near a park that I love. I put them up in the daylight and didn’t want to draw too much attention to myself so I decided to go back the next day and take pictures. When I went back they were gone, someone had gone to quite a bit of effort to chisel them off the concrete. It makes me sad that people want to remove beauty. Why should I be scared to install beauty in public while other people install hate in public every day? My friend just texted me to tell me a guy swore at her for sitting in the seat he wanted on the train. How many people stopped this from happening? But someone made SURE those tiles were gone, innocent silly little tiles. It is a very backwards society that we live in.

Anyway, ranting aside, I didn’t want to be discouraged so today I put up 4 more tiles on Chicago Ave. in Evanston, along an abandoned stretch of buildings. As I was finishing a car pulled up but I stood my ground and took pictures. I thought they were parking but they were just pulling over. I’m hoping they were just confused where they were going and weren’t trying to snoop on me. Doing this stuff in the daylight might not be my thing, but we’ll see how I’m feeling after a few more. I like the colors of these tiles and I like how they play off of the colors in the pole. I did find new glue that isn’t runny at all (more like caulk), completely sets in 10 minutes, and is more environmentally friendly. I’m liking this project and liking the subtle love it gives these neighborhoods.

I have a large jar full of colorful tiles that I decided I was going to start gluing to the sidewalk. This was my first try but I think the glue is a little too liquidy (you can see where it oozed out the sides up close) so I’m going to keep trying different adhesives. I placed these tiles in front of a place that is very special to me: a place that I’ve spent endless hours of my time and energy over the years and where a small piece of my heart will forever remain despite closing the doors for the last time on Friday.