Is Your Fire Hydrant Covered in Yarn?

Keep your eyes peeled, the city’s public art manager, Dana Springs, tells us this morning.

The Americans for the Arts national convention is here this week. Springs says there are some yarn bombers in their midst.

What’s yarn bombing? I told you yesterday about a crocheted bike I’d helped identify as the progeny of an artist named Olek, one of the most prolific graffiti crochet masterminds.

A friend of mine dug up this amazing gallery of some of the best crochet street art. And my colleague Will Carless passed along a recent New York Times story on the trend to cover concrete and steel, urban structures and familiar objects like bicycles, with brightly colored, crocheted-to-fit, sweaters.

The trend’s popping up here, too.

Reader Lizbeth Persons Price saw our post yesterday on Olek and posted a couple of photos of newly woolen handrails on the Spruce Street pedestrian bridge to our Facebook page: here and here. The colorful additions are credited to the “Spruce Street Skeinsters.”

Ozzie Monge commented: “That got me eyeing my dusty knitting needles. But I can only make scarves and I don’t know how to purl!”

Have you seen something in your neighborhood yarn-bombed? Take a picture and upload it to our page.

Or have you ever knit or crocheted an unconventional item? Tell us about it below or on our Facebook page.

I am the arts editor for VOSD. You can reach me directly at kelly.bennett@voiceofsandiego.org or 619.325.0531. Or you can keep up with me on Twitter @kellyrbennett or on Facebook.