Eat your veggies!

Over the last couple of weeks I have been busily knitting five chillis, one aubergine/eggplant, one courgette/zucchini, one tomato, one leek, one carrot and one sweetcorn. A few eyebrows have been raised, let me tell you! But it was all  for a good cause. . . part 2 of the Nutrition and Physical Activity (NPA) Programme yarnification.

Promoting healthy eating is a key part of the NPA strategy, so what better than to decorate their surroundings with a selection of knitted veggies?! Here's the NPA "Healthy As" website and their feature on fresh foods. . .

Oh, and while I was there I added another bike rack cosy, so at least the bike rack would be warm even if I wasn't! Today another wintry cold snap began and that bitterly cold wind fresh from Antarctica was going right through me!

Before my hands froze to the metal I added a couple of fence hearts too ♥♥



I finished off my afternoon of yarnification with a trip over to the main entrance of the hospital, and sewed another bike rack cosy on there too. . . the one in the front:



Hopefully these yarnifications will bring a few smiles to peoples' faces. . .

Knitted tree hug

The Accomplice has been very busy lately! Bit by bit she has been knitting a Tree Hug! It's a cosy for one of the trees beside the main entrance of the hospital. I haven't knitted any of this - it is all solely the Accomplice's work, but I have been helping to sew it on, and very good it looks too. 

The funny thing is that the Accomplice (who initially said she would knit or crochet for the cause but would NEVER be bold enough to sew any of the yarnifications in place) has now completely got over her shyness and thinks nothing of attaching knit graffiti in broad daylight beside one of the busiest areas of the hospital! We even roped in the visiting physio student to help sew on the latest part of the cosy this week! Bet she never thought Knit Graffiti would be part of her clinical placement in Nelson!

Nutrition and Physical Activity Dept, by special request - part 1

Last month I got a request to add a little yarnification to the "Nutrition and Physical Activity" part of the Public Health department at the hospital. I have quite a major plan in mind, but here is part 1 (the simplest!) Hope you like it so far, "Greenman and Booboo" ;-)

Fence post cosy

Bike rack cosies with fence post cosy behind

 The bike rack cosies look so short that I might well add some extra length to them at a later stage. I knitted the ribbed one in the foreground, and my Wifie (aka Partner-in-Craft) knitted the stripy multi-textured one in the background. The Accomplice knitted the rainbow fence post cosy, so this was really a team effort.

Talking of the Accomplice, when I drove past the front entrance of the hospital I spotted that the she had been bold enough to sew a cosy onto one of the trees, which she thought looked a bit cold in this wintry weather. Last Sunday we had snow in this area for the first time in many years. . . the tree certainly looks warmer now!!

Arohanui CHCH

Last weekend we did a flying visit to Christchurch (CHCH). Drove down one day and back the next, with a stop in Amberley overnight. I really wanted to leave some yarnification to brighten the place up a bit, but was not organised ahead of time. So, on the way down there when I wasn't driving I was knitting! A red acrylic square of stocking stitch, really rather boring but my plan was to embroider something on it. While we were in Amberley I finished knitting the square and embroidered a heart with CHCH in it.  Even attached a Yarnificationz label so anyone who finds it can check back here at the blog if they are interested.

The next day we continued down to CHCH, met up with a ravelry friend (awesome to meet her at last!) and did what we were there to do. On the way out of CHCH I suddenly remembered I had not put up my yarnification, so we stopped at the next likely spot we saw and much to the bemusement of my own family and passing drivers, I scurried out of the car and spent a hasty few minutes sewing "Arohanui CHCH" in place. If you live locally and want to find it, it's on Normans Road, just beside the intersection with Papanui Road. It looks quite good against the liquefaction grey, I think. . .

Hopefully this tiny bit of yarnification will make a few people smile and remind them that the rest of us are still thinking of them down in quakey-shakey CHCH. Talking of which, recently I was contacted by someone from NZ Kidz Mag and we are talking about the possibility of organising a yarnification blitz on CHCH over the next few months. . . so watch this space for more news, and if you would like to get involved please let me know. Only very basic knitting/crochet skills necessary and contributions welcome from far and near :)

International Yarn-Bombing Day. . . Part 3: Heart Fence.

Before the sun came up and we headed back home, we made a quick detour to the tennis courts to add a few fence hearts. . .

 Then it was stealthily back home for us, before the sun rose and the village came to life :)

International Yarn-Bombing Day. . . Part 2: Scarfies Sculpture.

For the second part of the IYBD yarnificationz, my lovely Wifie agreed to get up with me before sunrise today so we could put up our yarnifications under cover of darkness! She had also done half the knitting for this installation, but this was her first go at putting any yarnifications in place. . . Here she is in action, attaching one of the two scarfs she knitted:

And here I am, attaching a cable tie to help keep one of the scarfs in place, using my brand new head-torch to help me see what I was doing.

Here's the finished Scarfies Sculpture yarnification. . .

P.S. Here are the links to part 1  and part 3 of our International Yarn-Bombing Day extravaganza!

International Yarn Bombing Day - part 1: Hospital bike rack cosies

Bike rack cosies outside hospital's main entrance

International Yarn-Bombing Day isn't until Saturday 11th June, but I won't be back at work till next Monday, so attached the two bike rack cosies this afternoon. I knitted the fluoro yellow and pink one and my Accomplice made the much more subtle blue one with a touch of pink. The Accomplice made it quite clear she was not going to have anything to do with attaching them though, that was all down to me!

At 4 pm, having finished my day's work, I spent half an hour attaching the cosies in place, right under the telephone operators' window, very close to the Hospital's main entrance. I crouched down in amongst the bikes that were there when I started, and no-one batted an eyelid apart from the two cyclists who eventually came to ride their bikes away, and the elderly "Courtesy Shuttle" driver who seemed to think I was having difficulty undoing my bike lock!! It will be interesting to see how long the cosies stay there… The cyclists wanted to know if I was planning to cover all four bike racks in knitting. I told them that if these two cosies stay in place a while I will certainly consider it! One of the cyclists reckoned that people will be fighting to get their bike leaning up against a cosy bike rack rather than the regular kind (but he was probably just humouring me!) The other cyclist informed me that this kind of thing is all the rage these days, and we had quite a conversation about knit graffiti vs regular graffiti, and why a person might do such a thing.

There will be an International Yarn-Bombing Day part 2 and maybe even part 3 coming soon, so stay tuned ;-)

Hospital Helipad Yarnification

So, every work day I see the hospital helipad and warning sign, and every day I have thought it could do with a little brightening up. I've been busy the last couple of evenings working on a little something for the helipad, and today I put my latest yarnification in place. . .

A little crocheted red rescue helicopter with knitted i-cord rotor blades and skids, as a homage to the Summit Rescue Helicopter which frequents the helipad. I used the "Teeny toy helicopter" pattern by Meghan Brawley, which I downloaded from ravelry. 

 I also knitted a sign cosy using the Little Red Helicopter Chart by Sandra Jäger. Two helicopters - one on the back and one on the front of the sign. . .

Hope my latest yarnification doesn't break any Civil Aviation Authority rules?! In the small print of the sign it says that trespassers are liable for prosecution plus a penalty of 3 months prison or $2000 fine, but with any luck my little helicopters won't be seen as trespassers, and nor will I!
I'll let you know. . .

Poppies for Anzac Day

I made several poppies to decorate the RSA building grounds where the Anzac parade/service is held every year. I sewed on the poppies just as dusk was falling the night before Anzac Day. The poppies were still in place for the Anzac Parade at 10.45 am and I heard several people making positive comments about the knitted poppies :-) 

The first few photos were taken immediately after I had attached the poppies. The last five photos were taken on Anzac Day.

After the laying of wreaths and flowers

I used this pattern for most of the poppies and this one for the larger poppy attached to the flag pole. Both those links take you to the relevant pattern pages on ravelry. 

Anzac Day occurs on 25th April every year and is marked in New Zealand and Australia. It commemorates all those who lost their lives in war, and also honours returned servicemen and women. "ANZAC" is an acronym formed from the first letters of the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, which was the group soldiers were formed into in Egypt before landing at Gallipoli in April 1915. 

Anzac Day was first marked in 1916, and Anzac Day ceremonies are held all over New Zealand. For a little village like ours, we had a very good turn out and everyone was in good voice. As usual the "Last Post" brought me out in goosebumps. . . For the first time ever, Sonny Jim took part in the parade, with the rest of his Cub Scout group, and when the appropriate time came he solemnly laid his poppy on the memorial. As for me, I had already placed my poppies the night before. . .

Some of the crowd at the Anzac Day ceremony

Sonny Jim places his poppy


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

Happy 100th International Women's Day!

Of course, I wanted to add a little celebratory yarnification to International Women's Day, and this is the end result!! Here's a link to my free pattern for the Female Gender Symbol.

International Women's Day yarnification

A chain of female gender symbols: ♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀♀, each one a different colour, strung under the eaves of the Nelson Women's Centre. My concept was that each female symbol would be a different colour and they would all be different sizes (just like us women!) but when joined together they have strength in their diversity as well as similarities. As you can see in the photo, one of the verandah posts also has an I.W.D. cosy, incorporating the official International Women's Day logo in white and purple. . .  On International Women's Day I left home at 7 in the morning, in order to get to the Women's Centre in plenty of time to install the yarnification before they opened at 9 am. It took me around half an hour to put it in place, and I wrote a quick note to explain myself, as well as leaving details of this blog. Then I just had to go away and hope the women of the Women's Centre liked what they would find! Later that afternoon I was delighted to find a comment on the blog from Carrie at the Women's Centre and it looks like they appreciated my efforts. Woohooooo! I smiled for the rest of the day!!

So that's the short version - but here's a bit more detail if you want it!

Pretty much as soon as I came up with this yarnification idea, I had only one location in mind - the Nelson Women's Centre. Even though I had never actually used the facilities there before, it just seemed like the perfect spot for the I.W.D. knit graffiti!

My target: Te Whare Awhina Mo Nga Wahine Puawai / Nelson Women's Centre

My first thought was to somehow link some knitted ♀ symbols together. Next I thought of a knitted bra with orange yarny flames coming out of it, to evoke reminders of the feminist "bra burning" in the 1960s (before I was even born!) But two things turned me away from that idea - firstly I couldn't come up with a satisfactory way of portraying "flames" with yarn, and secondly after a few minutes of research I realised that tales of "bra burning" were probably more of an urban myth than reality. . . So that idea never made it to fruition. 

However, whilst exploring the International Women's Day website I came across a logo  which I converted by hand (using pencil and paper) into a chart and then into a rectangular "cosy" which ended up adorning a verandah post on the front deck of the Women's Centre. . .

♀ under construction

The chain of inter-linked ♀ symbols posed my biggest challenge of stamina. I had no fixed number in mind, but decided to construct as many as I could before the novelty completely wore off! In the end I knitted 15 and my lovely Wifie knitted another 3. They were knitted with i-cord, using different shades of various acrylic yarns in my stash. 

As all the yarn used is synthetic and the wire is galvanised it should be fairly weather proof outside though the seasons, but could equally be taken inside the Women's Centre as an internal decoration. . .

Here are a few more photos of today's yarnstorm:

A pile of knitting!

The Nelson Women's Centre post-yarnification

The newly attached knitting

Sign beside front door

The finished installation

Mischief managed!