Knitting Gardeners (or Knitters w/Gardening Friends)... This One's For You!

Is it just a coincidence that almost every single knitter I know is also an avid gardener? The only bad thing about knitting and gardening is that the knitting always suffers when it's gardening season, right?

Well there's not much we can do about that. I don't believe anyone has found a way to knit and garden (successfully) at the same time. I have seen people knitting while exercising though, so maybe it's only a matter of time?

For now, here's a great way for you to at least ENJOY your knitting while working in your garden. A husband and wife pair from San Francisco have started "Plant Bombing" and I'm absolutely loving it! 

Read the article on treehugger.com by clicking here!

I used to have hens & chicks in my rock garden, but I would much rather plant them in these colorful pockets!

Check out Heather's website for instructions!

Heather's website has great instructions on how to make these knitted pockets. Crocheters need not feel left out... it's a pretty simple construction and could easily be done in crochet.

This is a great project for stash yarn, and a great CREATIVE gift for all of your gardening friends this holiday.

And Chrissy found yarn bombings as well!

Chrissy was recently on vacation with her family in Washington state, and while we were catching up on Skype the other day she mentioned that she'd seen some really cool yarn bombings while she was there. She promised to send me the pictures and so here they are! They're quite impressive and clearly much larger than the one I found here in Finland! Here's what she said:

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As promised here are the "yarn bombing" pics from Washington (I guess neither are true "bombings" as one was a fundraiser, and one was funded, but I thought they were fun anyway).

The first three were taken in Anacortes, WA. in front of a nice little yarn/needlepoint/quilting shop -- "Ana-Cross Stitch" The town ran a "paint the town purple" fundraiser for cancer research, and this was their contribution. All hand knit by the shop employees. Pic #3 was some excellent knitted sushi found inside the shop.

The second three I happened upon in Occidental Park near Pioneer Square in Seattle. These were machine knit, but added much warmth and color to a pretty dark part of town.

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What beautiful pictures! I would want to walk through this park every day just to lift my spirits! To see more about this project, check out this link and look at all the cool pictures... and to read about the artist, see this one.

Thanks Chrissy!

Finnish Yarn Bombing

Yesterday was Marc's birthday, so the girls and I set out to find him a birthday dessert. In Vermont we would have just gone to the grocery store to pick up a cake, but here it's a little different.

We left our apartment and walked to the Tampereen Kauppahalli which is an indoor market hall that's over 100 years old. It's full of all different types of little shops that line three aisles. Here one can find delicious meats and fish, fresh vegetables, wonderful breads, cheeses and pastries. There are even flower shops, shoe shops and a barber. We found some delicious deserts to sample from the Brander Bakery.
While we were out walking, I noticed a man in front of us peering curiously at an iron gate. It looked like an ordinary gate to me, so I wondered what it was that had caught his attention. After a moment, he walked away and we approached the gate.It was my first yarn bombing encounter! This unobstrusive little Italian flag-like piece with pom poms had clearly been there for a while - it looked a bit weathered! I'd walked by this gate at least 5 times in the past week and I'd never noticed it.

It's no wonder... here it is with Helen for scale (it's just above her head to the right): I love how it's there, but it's not IN YOUR FACE there. There is a tag attached to this one that says knitsea.blogspot.com, so of course I came right home and checked out her blog (which is conveniently in Finnish AND English!) Apparently she lives here and leaves a lot of these little "signs" around town. I think I've found the Tampere's official yarn bomber! This is a map of places in town that she's hit: I live just down at the bottom of the river where it meets the lake, and I've walked by almost all of these places. I went through her blog and it looks like this little piece was installed in April of 2010, so it's been hanging around for 15 months now.

From now on I will be keeping my eyes open just a bit wider!