Sunday, February 28, 2010

A cozy coverup...





In the urban world of graffiti, to tag over someone else's work can be considered an act of turf warfare. Personally, I would trade peace over fame any day! This morning, we had the perfect chance in Crissie Caughlin Park.

Done deal, and off for a bagel and a cup of joe to plan the next one.
Peace y'all,
OP1

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

One ball at a time


Another day, another tag. A small scale piece that was fun to create and makes me think of more specific ideas, like Easter eggs, Hot Air Balloon races, alien themes and Hallowe'en. Never mind Christmas! OP1 is knitting like mad, which, if you are also a knitter, you know is helpful during the down times when you're consumed with watching these winter Olympics.

With this tag we christened a new operative - I don't know yet if he also wants to learn to knit - I sure hope so! But he was so game to follow me out to a parking lot, hit an SUV and I'm kicking myself that I didn't get his hands in the pic as he was attaching the piece. Ah, well, We've been in "business" for a month or so and still have so much to learn.





DG1 is also game to go! He is all in for any activity and seemed to have a really fun time today. He's been an accomplice on 1 or 2 forays, and is an enormous distraction for the crew when need be.

SK2 has been very undercover with new plants of her own - enormously busy, but we'll get an update from her soon. She's so incredible with her creativity and ideas and you'll love seeing her project

Knit 4 Peace
Be kind

SK1

Thursday, February 18, 2010

What to wear?


Since you're reading this, you've come across one or more of our tags and you've asked yourself, "How do I get started, and what do I wear?"

SK2 found this link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/27365959@N00/376053589/ for Peace Cuffs. A must have for every serious bomber!

I knit up a cuff yesterday, using leftover yarns from kits by my friend, Kathryn Alexander. I have dozens of colors to choose from, of course. If you've ever heard of Kathryn and seen her work, you will know that she throws tons of colors into her knitting. Into her entire life, actually. Makes me happy to work with all of this rainbow! www.kathrynalexander.net

Using the Peace Cuff as a jumping off point, I came up with a chart for our crew.


Now to get more pieces knitted so that I can wear my cuffs with pride, and have them included with pictures of our tags. In that vein, OP1 will be getting his first knitting lesson tomorrow - yay! IMHO, another knitter on our planet is a good thing. Stay tuned for some creative maneuvers!

Knit 4 Peace
SK1

Monday, February 15, 2010

Nice to have a holiday...Again!


Nice that the government gives some of us these days off. MLK day, President's day. Those are the 2 we've enjoyed so far this year, and the days during which Sk2 & Sk1 have enjoyed tagging sprees on. What's coming up holiday-wise? I'm not sure since I'm not gainfully employed.

Sk2 & I have been gainfully employed at tagging on these occasions. It's been interesting - miserable weather on the one hand, or superb weather on the other. We haven't ventured into night-time tagging. It's so cool that you can go out in your community and actually do this stuff in broad daylight and no one stops you. In fact, Sk2 came across a co-worker as we were tagging far away from where she would have expected him to be, and he was very casual about what we were about.

It just adds layers upon layers.

Here's what we accomplished:

The picture above is on a park bench. The Peace sign is on a tree nearby. We especially love that the tree is along a main drag, and will be seen by so many people, including people walking, running and biking, so they can see our blog addy on the ribbon.


K 4 Peace
As always
Sk1

Sunday, February 14, 2010

New Banner 4 Peace


I spent some time designing the new banner, then knitting it. Sk2 and I came up with the same idea for the banner - knitted Peace icon. Not hard to design - any girl worth her weight in salt and in high school in the early 70's drew dozens of Peace signs on her notebooks. The trick with knitting is that you have to take into account the width vs height of knitted stitches. I downloaded knitter's graph paper from www.sweaterscapes.com, took the lid off a Quaker Oats canister and traced a circle onto the graph paper, then filled in every rectangle that had a line passing through it. Lined out the design the way I wanted it then transferred it to my silly knitting software that only has square graph paper because it's easier for me to see and follow. (It's beyond me why the software designer would only give you a true square in graphing...sheesh....) You can see how elongated the pattern becomes on paper, but truncates back again to get you as close as possible to a circle when knitted. All in the math, my friends.







I haven't tagged with the Peace sign yet - but in driving around town today I saw some good opportunities which will hopefully be played out tomorrow. I'm thinking of a park bench set back from the street but at a busy intersection. Or perhaps a bench at a bus stop. Or hung on some chain link fence along a busy street that has a sidewalk.

And I found a moose statue that cries out for a leg wrap! An antler wrap would be outstanding, but I'm not tall enough to reach that high. Got a couple of pieces that will fit a leg and sure to get attention.

There's some great tagging going on for Valentine's Day - see our links to blogs. Give us your comments.

K4Ps
Knit 4 Peace
Live for today
Help one another
Pursue inspiration

SK1

Monday, February 8, 2010

Operation Mexico!



So our "operative", as he shall be known henceforth, did a bit of planting for us. Arriving back home from Cancun yesterday, I'm pretty surprised he had the time and energy to send us pictures and descriptions of his adventures. Me - I would've taken a week, or for those who know me well, perhaps a year, to complete the assignment. Mr. Operative - you ROCK!

I'm including his verbatim descriptions, plus pics:

"Right on the beach just north of our hotel. A home had been destroyed during hurricane Wilma in 2005. The pool is half gone and the property is protected
by barbed wire at the bottom of a steep dune. Since I am a klutz at heart, it was no small deed to come away with all my skin after climbing under barbed wire
wearing only my swimsuit."
















tag 2
"This is the statue on Kukulcan. I had pre-sewn buttons on the two skinny tags for quicker installation, and I also was able to sew the K4P tag onto the end. I wrangled
about adding a button - I hope it was OK and not too far from the plan. My rationale is that some sweaters have buttons....... Yay for a hotel sewing kit." (And YAY - seeing this pic for the first time I was laughing and cheering! - SK1








tag 3
"This was on the light post by the shark. I wanted to follow your previous tags in style, but also have the tag look like it was in Cancun - I think we got that one here."










tag 4
"In the palm on a new growth frond. Really almost got caught. Had to scuttle out of the mall and scoot back to the hotel before the federales grabbed us."



Thanks, OP1 - you're the best and we look forward to more from you and your cohorts!




Sk1
knit4PEACE

Sunday, February 7, 2010

Knit 4 Peace Bookshelf, part 1

There are a number of books that can provide inspiration for socially-minded knitters. This is the first in a series of posts suggesting knitting books every knitfiti artist should check out.

First and foremost: the Knitfiti artist's bible: Yarn Bombing: The Art of Crochet and Knit Graffiti by Mandy Moore and Leanne Prain. This book describes the history and spread of knitfiti and even gives tips for gathering your crew and making successful bombing runs. The wealth of pictures are sure to give you all kinds of ideas for knit-tagging the world around you.

Knit4Peace, SK2

Monday, February 1, 2010

Hola y Adios

Climbing the learning curve. The latest in car antenna tagging was a resounding success, in part because I chose a car whose owner I know, and he was FLATTERED to have gotten a hit. Plus a good story - he didn't notice the tag until his car had been safe in his closed garage, nor the card with our blog address tucked under his wiper until the next day. I knew he would have a pretty good idea of who hit him, and thought he'd love it. At the same time, I was terrified he would have felt an assault and still know who it was, and never speak to me again. Happy I was to hear from him and to see the cozy still on his antenna a couple of days later.

As it turns out, he and his partner plus business partner/great friend are heading for Mexico tomorrow. He's offered to place tags for us there, which is awesome! He promises to avoid state-owned vehicles, which is really, really smart! So "Hola Mexico!" We started organizing a little less than a month ago, and already will be tagging internationally! Cin cin! Little does he know that he and his cohorts will be asked to be our emissaries wherever they travel! Part of our newest crew, as soon as I get their permission. AND a relative and her friend in Napa are also willing to get online with this as of a few minutes ago. WOW! Makes me think of fractile math...

The rest of the story - the learning curve/adios part:

That great rock cozy (rocozie?) I left last week is gone. Adios! I'm not unhappy about it, just wondering who would completely remove it. Leaving something like this in a county-owned park that is maintained and free and clear of debris should have sent the message: We don't want what's not county property here. Same goes for the downtown museum of art.

So my next strategy is leaving rocks like these by the sides of roads and running paths where some debris exists so that we know that no one is really wanting to pick up trash and would probably leave our bombings alone, other than hopefully to make note of them and then view our site. And think how much prettier these places will be!

We're looking for established charities to link to which are somehow fiber-related. I'll be adding Heifer International, a group working in Haiti now and to which I've donated for years. A very worthy cause.

Knit4Peace!

Let us know if you'd like to join us in knitting, tagging, or both, and why.

SK1