Friday, June 15, 2012

The Last Frontier

I've recently returned from a trip to the amazing state of Alaska and I couldn't help but notice the crocheted products in all of the stores.  One thing that particularly caught my interest were these adorable headbands, hats, and fingerless gloves, I saw in several stores. 
Assortment of Alaska Chicks Products
All of these products are made by a company named Alaska Chicks.  Alaska Chicks is a company founded just in 2010, based out of Palmer, AK.  There products range from distressed furniture and home decor to T-shirts and hoodies, to crocheted items like in the picture.  For more products mad by Alaska Chicks, check out there website: http://www.alaskachicks.com/

Tuesday, June 12, 2012

Yarnbombing 2012!

Earlier this year my husband decided that he wanted to do a Geocaching-Road Rally Event on Saturday June 9th.  I was excited when he told me that this day also happened to be International Yarnbombing Day and he wanted me to create three yarnbombs to place along the route, for the twelve teams to find.  So I took a look at my yarn bin and realized that this was a great way to get rid of some extra yarn that wouldn't really make a full project. 

For my first yarnbomb I opted to use the largest hook I have, my N hook, and double crochet together three different strands of green yarn.  Then I added some big pom poms to it so it would be easier to spot since this would be out in nature.  I put it right along the course and some teams passed right by it, some wondered what it was and then realized 'oh, this must be a yarnbomb,' and some teams figured it out right away.
Of the 12 teams only 4-5 of them found this one.

For my second yarnbomb I wanted it to be pretty obvious, so I used my bright variant pastel yarn and created a basic ripple pattern.  When I was working on this at home I thought this was going to be a little big, but once I put it on the tree I realized I probably could have added a few more rows to it since the width of it was hidden due to the circumference of the tree.
About six teams found this nice large one.
And finally for my third yarnbomb I wanted to make an Owl.  I again decided to use more yarn that I didn't really have a project for and crocheted some circles a small beak and them stitched them all together.  This was the hardest one for the teams to find as it was placed along a hiking trail and used a dark variant yarn.  
Four teams found this owl yarnbomb.
Overall I was very pleased with how these turned out and excited that I was able to share my passion of crocheting to others through yarnbombing. I think it helped that my husband gave a substantial number of points towards each yarnbomb so teams really wanted to find them.  One geocacher even sent me the video below that showed how a lady in NYC completely crocheted over the Wall Street Bull on Christmas Eve 2010, which looks like it would have take a lot of time and money to complete, but good for her! 


I hope you all got to do some yarnbombing or see some yarnbombing of your own, and if not do some crocheting in public this week, as the fun world-wide festivities towards our favorite hobby continue!