Crochet for a Cause

An experiment in crafitivism. #whomademyclothes

I stood five feet away watching from the corner of my eye as a homeless man lounged against my yarn graffiti. A skater in a hoodie sped past me, but stopped in his tracks to read the stitched words. I saw two girls walk by, read it, and smile to each other. They leaned down to feel it and reveled at the softness. Behind them, a bus driver slowed down, wondering what was written on the bench. I had written #whomademyclothes using crocheted scrap yarn and had attached it to a bench at a busy bus stop. The hashtag is used to advocate for garment workers’ rights. I wrote it in crochet chains so that I could see reactions to yarn graffiti firsthand.

“The aesthetic appeal of crochet is striking against an urban backdrop. Yarn graffiti, commonly called ‘yarn bombing,’ is often made using excess, scrap, and donated yarn.”

Activism is commonly associated with negative images of anything from persistent petitioners to violent protesting. Fiber arts are associated with femininity and domesticity. By bringing crochet outdoors and into urban environments, fiber artists subvert domesticity. Yarn graffiti activism reappropriates a symbol of domesticity to promote human interest and environmentalist causes.

The aesthetic appeal of crochet is striking against an urban backdrop. Yarn graffiti, commonly called ‘yarn bombing,’ is often made using excess, scrap, and donated yarn. (For the purposes of this article, the term ‘yarn graffiti’ will be used in place of ‘yarn bombing’ out of sensitivity to communities affected by violence.) Eclectic materials emphasize yarn graffiti’s time-consuming and handmade nature. An installation large enough to cover a tree trunk can take a month or more to crochet. Even the smallest graffiti gives a human, warm touch to an atmosphere of grey concrete and impersonality.

The yarn graffiti online trend began in full force around 2011, though it was likely invented in 2005. The owner of a sewing boutique in Texas, Magda Sayeg, knitted a cover for the front door handle of her shop. The positive reaction inspired her to wrap other structures in yarn. Others joined her, and the trend began to spread beyond Texas. Magda Sayeg went on to create some of the largest installations in the United States, including a pink tank. Yarn graffiti is now popular worldwide from Cuba to India to Scandinavia.

London Kaye (@madebylondon) is a fiber artist who has traveled all over the world putting up commissioned and non-commissioned yarn graffiti installations. She has crocheted faux puddles, life-size caricature figures, and ten foot butterfly wings in New York, Venice, Havana and many other cities worldwide. Her most recent installation was a ten foot tall pair of angel wings at a mental health awareness event in Toronto, Ontario, on May 10th. Children and adults alike enjoyed posing for photos in front of the textured off-white wings.

Crocheting public art can be explicitly activist. Fiber artist Agata Oleksiak, known as Olek, famously crocheted a sweater for the “Charging Bull” statue on Wall Street. Olek’s installation encased the entire eighteen foot bull in bright pink and purple yarn, making a political statement about Wall Street. Her work is known for making strong political and feminist statements.

“It’s about keeping our water clean.” On an Instagram post in 2017, London Kaye explained the meaning of her series of “puddles” leaking from water pipes and drains. London often makes implicitly activist yarn graffiti installations on a smaller scale than Olek, whom she is inspired by. The series includes “puddles” with koi fish, Pride colors, and psychedelic colors.

The simplest message present in all yarn graffiti is a peaceful activism for joy and kindness. Handmade sweaters are commonly associated with gifts from elderly family members. Placing a handmade sweater on a fence, statue, or fire hydrant is unexpected and forces observers to pause. Kristy Glass, a YouTuber and fiber artist, wants her yarn graffiti to inspire introspection on the kindness sweaters represent. “I think covering something cold and metal and abandoned in a custom fit ‘sweater’ sends a message that everyone needs that love and comfort.”

London is also fascinated by this peaceful activism. For her, yarn graffiti can spread joy by encouraging people to be actively present in their lives. “Yarn organically has a sense of nostalgia and softness engrained in every fibre. By putting it in public spaces, and creating whimsical designs, people cannot help, but stop and enjoy the present moment.”

“I put leg warmers on a statue. Only one fit on the statue’s leg so I put the other one on the cannon!” Emma Jansen chuckled as she recalled one of her early yarn graffiti attempts. Emma is a community member in San Jose, California, where she occasionally puts up yarn graffiti. She heard about yarn graffiti after the trend began and was inspired to try it herself.

International Yarn Bombing Day, June 11th, is largely responsible for the popularity of yarn graffiti online. Yarn graffiti groups worldwide will host events in their local communities to create and put up installations. These events are frequently advertised and remembered in posts on Facebook and Instagram. Emma has often participated in Yarnbomb at St. James Park, an annual event put on by San José Yarnbombers in collaboration with San José Parks, Recreation and Neighborhood Services. The event gives participants a tree to decorate however they like. Two of Emma’s most memorable instillations were a jackalope and a sugar skull.

“We (fiber artists) are empowering women to do something we’ve always done. We are taking a traditional craft and showing that it can be modern.” Emma loves that yarn graffiti makes people smile, because it is so unexpected. She has seen children run up and hug her yarn graffiti because it looks so soft and appealing. Though her tree cozies and animal motifs are not making any bold activist statements, Emma is very proud of the feminism implicit in her work. Yarn graffiti brings fiber arts, a craft strongly associated with domesticity, out into the urban landscape. Women, like crochet, have a place outside of the domestic space.

Community responses to yarn graffiti are inseparably tied to assumptions about the fiber arts and stitchers. Though members of the LGBTQ community and people of color often attend knitting circles, knitting is most commonly associated with middle class, white grandmothers. In contrast, spray paint graffiti is often associated with economic decline, gang culture, and black men. These assumptions, in addition to its impermanence, give yarn graffiti privileges over spray paint graffiti.

Blu Tirohl, a feminist academic, examined yarn graffiti through the lens of intersectionality. “Knitting has been classified as a ‘craft’ that historically women passively and quietly did.... Knitting is seen as a middle-class, mature, and white pursuit; as such it is not viewed as capable of causing distress. There is, therefore, a meeting of theories and practices of law, gender, age, class, race, craft and art which have benefitted yarn-bombers over graffiti-artists.”

In 2015, Yarn Bombing Los Angeles installed yarn graffiti reading #blacklivesmatter outside the Craft and Folk Art Museum. The yarn graffiti was brightly colored and used various textures of yarn. Their political message contrasted social assumptions about knitting and crochet. This subversion adds an additional element to create intrigue and open a conversation about the movement. When used for explicit activism, yarn graffiti’s privileges can be inverted to further deepen the meaning.

Yarn graffiti is no less illegal than spray paint graffiti. It is vandalism, though there are no recorded cases of yarn graffiti being prosecuted. Social assumptions and privilege are likely a notable reason that it is considered harmless. The nostalgic aesthetics and impermanence of yarn graffiti are also contribute. “Like other forms of street art, unsolicited yarn bombing puts it on the boundaries of legality but the representation of it as having nostalgic and cosy appeal has meant that yarn bombers largely slip beneath the radar of legal, as well as aesthetic, authority” (Tirohl).

In 2016, London Kaye experienced backlash over a fifteen by ten foot installation at a Bushwick flea market. The market had commissioned London without obtaining permission from the homeowner of the wall chosen for the yarn graffiti installation titled “Moonshine Kingdom.” The homeowner disliked it and raised community support to have it taken down. London had no idea that the flea market did not have permission. “I took the art down immediately. It was the greatest lesson. I now know how much art can effect a community, no matter how big or small it may be. And, how important getting permission is.”

June 11th is International Yarn Bombing Day. I invite you to seek out local installations and even consider joining in the fun! Make an explicit activist statement or enjoy the implicit messages of yarn graffiti. Crochet responsibly by aways asking permission first and setting a day to take your installation down to prevent mold.

Kristy Glass is constantly amazed by the community and creativity inspired by yarn graffiti. “It is a catalyst for a memory or thought. I think people reach back into their minds and reflect on a loved one they know who knits or crochets, and then it sparks something creative from within when they see it on a fence, as opposed to on an afghan or sweater.”

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Anderson, Tre'vell. “Yarn Bombing L.A. to Post 'Black Lives Matter' Outside Craft Museum.” Los Angeles Times, 8 Jan. 2015.

Burton, Anne. “June 11th Is International Yarn Bombing Day!” Handmadeology, 9 June 2011, www.handmadeology.com/june-11th-is-international-yarn-bombing-day/.

Mandell, Hinda. “June 11 Is 'Yarn Bombing Day'- And That's A Problem.” Forward, 3 June 2017.

Miller, Jennifer. “Yarn Bombing Hits the High Street.” New York Times, 2 Dec. 2016.

Personal Interview. Emma Jansen. 10 May 2019.

Personal Interview. Kristy Glass. 13 May 2019.

Personal Interview. London Kaye. 13 May 2019.

Tirohl, Blu. “Now Wash Your Hands: Uncommissioned Art and Gender.” Journal of Gender Studies, vol. 25, no. 6, 2016, pp. 693–704., doi:10.1080/09589236.2015.1136205.

Woolan, Mahlia. “Graffiti's Cozy, Feminine Side.” New York Times, 19 May 2011.

“Yarn Bombing Day.” Days Of The Year, www.daysoftheyear.com/days/yarn-bombing-day/.