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!!

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!

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!