Bringing you a bit of festive fibre on film our Fairy Godmothers of Documentrydom, the Alt Artist girls, have put together a little movie of our Knitmare Before Christmas.
Scary Stitchmas to all and a Yarnstormed New Year
The Knit the City Yarn Corps xxx
Twas the Knit before Christmas in cold London Town,
Where a lone ballerina was cast with a frown,
Yet she was not long for her knitless despair,
For Knit the City’s Yarn Corps soon would be there…
See the full tale soon.
Scary Stitchmas, London
KTC xxx
Come closer, mortals, we wish to tell you a tale of tube-flavoured terror…
Knit the City have a special love for underground London. In our formative days each of us were beckoned into shady underground doorways by our mysterious hooded mentor. There we were relentlessly trained in ways of the yarnstorm while we spent our days and nights in Knit the City’s secret underground wool-lined bunker.
This makes us all the more aware that sometimes, when the barrier between good and evil weakens on certain nights of the year, the evil and horror that lurks under London likes to creep out into the city and do unspeakable things to unsuspecting passers by.
We are stitch-struck wool-weaponed watchers of the London below your feet. We felt it was our duty to warn you. A stitched sign that something sinister sits in the city’s shadows.
Screwing up our courage, thowing in a handful of ghoulish ghost lights, and keeping our sharpened DPNs at the ready we yarnstormed one of London’s most haunted entrances to the underground – the rust-ravaged gateway to the empty echoes of abandoned Aldwych Station on The Strand.
Since the 1800s Aldwych has been a gallery, a chapel and a theatre. It is home to the soft sinister shimmer of many ghosts.
On this Halloween Night it was the setting for Knit the City’s Gate of Ghouls…
WOOooOOOOoOO! Our Gate of Ghouls!
EEP! The crochet bone's connected to the...crochet bone...
GAH! Discworld-flavoured DEATH will unravel your souuuuuuuul!
WAH! The Northern Line Nasty sees you in the dark!
YIKES! The Black Rabbit, Cthulhu and the Slake Moth come for us all in the end...
AGH! Don't let the stitched skelebones tempt you in!
GAME OVER! A maze-guarding ghostie!
BLOURP! Bits of bodies without bodies!
SQUEAK! Death of Rats will have your hamster!
EEK! The Jubileevil Mousetroll will make cheese of your chin!
PLACK! Demons and antlers and teeth oh my!
ICK! Dripping troll blood will ruin anything dry-clean only!
PLUG! A message from the woolly underworld!
BLARGH! A ghost actress to break your legs!
RARGH! Abandon hope to the handmade horror all ye who enter the Gate of Ghouls.
SHRIEK! Such sinister stitchery!
MWA HA HAAAA! Knit the City's satanic stitching on the sunset Strand
Pay heed to the woolly warning of the Gate of Ghouls, good people of London. You never know what is looking up when you’re not looking down…
For Halloween tales of yarnstorming horror straight from the Yarn Corps fingertips see:
Deadly Knitshade’s Attack of the Tubeline Trolls
The Fastener’s Crocheted Creeps
The Purple Purler’s DEATH’s Halloween Haunting
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into London something unexpected happens in the world of Knit the City. Like the writhing many-headed mass of a handmade hydra that we are, we have grown another yarnstorming limb. The sneaky stitching six become a magknitficent seven.
Ladies and gents we are proud to introduce Knit the City’s newest recruit, The Fastener.
Found wandering the streets of London as a lone ‘yarnbomber’ Knit the City tempted her to the wool-lined bunker with promises of shiny buttons and cake. She was then dragged through rigourous ‘yarnbomb’ detox and came, at last, to know the gentler ways of the Yarnstorm.
To see The Fastener’s story wander over to our Who? page.
For now, before the imminent yarnstorm, hits let’s find out a bit about The Fastener.
All buttons and bows and misbehaviour
The Fastener
What is your theme tune?
The A team
We don’t know about you but we’re pretty sure that the yarnstorm is going to hit any day now. And it’s a dark dark yarnstorm at that. You can tell by the way the sun disappears earlier these past few nights. Almost like it’s running away…
While we wait we’ll entice a couple more of the Knit the City Yarn Corps from the secret wool-lined bunker to cough up the answers to a few well-placed questions.
Gliding from the darkness we find ourselves in the company of the bringer of aristocratic artiness and high-class handmade loveliness that is Lady Loop and the opener of a 400-year-old can of ancient Japanse yarnstorming whupass that is Knitting Ninja.
Lady Loop
What is your theme tune?
Barber’s Adagio for Strings
Which superhero’s powers would you most like and why?
The ability to fly, of course. Which I’d do with the power of my knitted cape.
What is your biggest fear?
That one day, the wine might run out.
Your three stranded on a desert island yarnstorming essentials?
Yarn, a crochet needle and a nice bottle of merlot.
If you died during a yarnstorm what epitaph would you have on your gravestone?
She came, she knitted, she conquered.
The Knitting Ninja is currently taking a vow of silence to further hone her knitting skills without the distraction of speech.
What is your theme tune?
……..
Which superhero’s powers would you most like and why?
……..
What is your biggest fear?
……..
Your three stranded on a desert island yarnstorming essentials?
……..
If you died during a yarnstorm what epitaph would you have on your gravestone?
……..
There’s a definite yarnstorm electricity in the air. Where in this tangled ball of yarn of a city is it coming from? Londom’s street smog is thick with it. It can only be a matter of time before it hits.
In the meantime we drag two more unsuspecting sneaky stitchers from the secret wool-lined bunker to confess.
Stepping out of the shadows are the knitblast-cursed rodent-wrangling Deadly Knitshade and the fang-fixated Purple Purler.
Deadly Knitshade
What is your theme tune?
A Four-Legged Friend by Roy Rogers
Which superhero’s powers would you most like and why?
It’d have to be Spiderman’s wallcrawling and webslinging for those hard to reach yarnstorm targets. Must remember that with great yarnstorming power would come great yarnstorming responsibility.
What is your biggest fear?
The Blue Whale in the Natural History Museum coming to life and appearing above me while I sleep. Watching me with his tiny evil eyes… Oh the ocean-based horror…
Your three stranded on a desert island yarnstorming essentials?
(Aside from yarn) my trusty 300-tool swiss army knife, a soldering iron, and buttons and beads for blinky ‘Don’t leave me’ eyes. So sad.
If you died during a yarnstorm what epitaph would you have on your gravestone?
“Purl, interrupted.”
What is your theme tune?
Under Pressure by Queen and David Bowie
Which superhero’s powers would you most like and why?
Invisibility: imagine all the conversations I could overhear, and all the scandal I could witness unseen. However, if I could be Dr Jean Gray from X-Men that would rock!!
What is your biggest fear?
Reserves of Rescue Remedy run dry on the day the vampire underworld was discovered and I was meant to meet Stephen Fry!
Your three stranded on a desert island three yarnstorming essentials?
Purple cable ties, Rescue Remedy, and pear cider
If you died during a yarnstorm what epitaph would you have on your gravestone?
“She tried! She failed! She got impaled!”
There’s a yarnstorm brewing. If you stick your head out of the window you can smell it in the London air. It’s reaching its woolly fingers out of the shadows and feelings its way towards its target. The countdown is on.
In the run up to the whirlwind of woolly wrongdoing we’re taking the opportunity to help you get to know the Knit the City Yarn Corps a little better.
First out of the secret wool-lined bunker are the sweary butterfly-surrounded Bluestocking Stitcher and the sheepdip-sniffing Shorn-a the Dead.
What is your theme tune?
Nothing Can Stop Us Now – Saint Etienne
or
Thinking of You by The Colourfield
Which superhero’s powers would you most like and why?
Elastigirl – so handy for those awkward yarnstorming angles.
What is your biggest fear?
Beige
Your three stranded on a desert island yarnstorming essentials?
(Apart from yarn) Dymo tape,
a 4mm crochet hook, a swearing dictionary
If you died during a yarnstorm what epitaph would you have on your gravestone?
“If she’d had stretchy arms, this would never have happened.”
What is your theme tune?
Rawhide
Which superhero’s powers would you most like and why?
Gail Trimble’s University
Challenge question-answering prowess.
What is your biggest fear?
Moths
Your three stranded on a desert island yarnstorming essentials?
Shuriken yarn-cutter, rubbish bag (I am Yarn Ends Girl) and anti-moth flamethrower
If you died during a yarnstorm what epitaph would you have on your gravestone?
“The moths did it.”
London in the summer is full of festivals. Not just the kind of festivals that see you up to your knees in fast-food flecked mud, quietly dreading the next time you have to brave the horror that is the campsite toilets, and subject to the sudden unexplained urge to get luminous dreadlocks smeared into your greasy unwashed hair. There are much less smelly festivals too. And Knit the City were invited to take part in one.
Spotlight sneaky stitcher: a nervous Deadly Knitshade on the panel
The British Film Institute teamed up with onedotzero for the Adventures in Motion weekend. Much to our ‘Eh? You’re asking us to do what?’ surprise we were asked to take part in their City Interventions debate. Joining us were Jason Bruges (whose studio are doing art installations for the 2012 Olympics) and James Powderly (who was impressively sweary and once graffited on Mars, the planet not the chocolate bar).
Alongside these two was a very nervous Deadly Knitshade, who presented what turned out to be a bit of a Knit the City Graffiti Knitting Manifesto.
Get yourself a nice cup of tea and possibly a bit of battenburg, make yourself comfy, and Deadly Knitshade will begin…
Once in a lifetime a film comes along that will touch your heart, make you laugh till tea comes out of your nose, make you cry till you get a dehydration headache, and make you wish that you could live you life again and do it alllllll so differently that world peace ensued and all famine was wiped out.
This is not that film.
But it is pretty freaking cool.
Alt Artist ladies, you did the Yarn Corps proud. Loving your work. Feel free to stalk us any time.
KTC x
Once upon a time there were six lonely, grey and stony churches dotted around a giant city of concrete and commuters. These churches had history, they had lived in the city for many years, and long ago someone had thought so much of them they had written them into a nursery rhyme and made their singing bells the stars.
Time flowed on around the churches and as it did the songs of the bells grew quieter and quieter. Shiny new buildings grew around the six churches hiding them as the city became a many legged and many wheeled beast belching money and smoke and all things modern.
If you listened very carefully when you passed these churches you might hear their lonely bells whisper:
“Oranges and lemons,” said the bells of St Clements,
“You owe me five farthings,” said the bells of St Martins,
“When will you pay me?” said the bells of Old Bailey,
“When I grow rich,” said the bells of Shoreditch,
“When will that be?” said the bells of Stepney,
“I do not know,” said the great bells of Bow.
Just when all hope seemed lost and the bells’ song was barely a heard, the Knit the City Yarn Corps rode in on their shiny red bus steeds. They were six yarnstorming warriors with history in their heads, yarn in their hands and the song of the bells in their rhythm of their stitching. And thus the Oranges and Lemons Odyssey began…
To record this heroic tale the Yarn Corps were accompanied by two fair maidens of the mysterious guild of Alt Artist. Travelling video minstrels who sought out graffiti tales to share as they journeyed.
Enter The Purple Purler who is faced with St Clements, a solemn grey box of a church on St Clement’s Lane. Fearless was she as she vaulted the church’s defences and made her way to the very front door. She presented the church and its fruit-obsessed bells with a ship sailing on a citrus sea.
The Purple Purler fears no pointy bars
Safely strung up
St Martin Orgar is a ghost of a church that was partly turned to ashes in the 1666 Great Fire of London. In memory of its silent bells Knitting Ninja used her stealthy stitching skills to grow new life on old ground. A woolmade waterfall of leaves and fruit that grew from the church yard to the Blue Plaque beneath.
Knitting Ninja and helpful Jason Orange the yarnstorming stepladder
History meets knittery
St Sepulchre-without-Newgate houses the bells that once sang the inmates of London Newgate Prison to their final sleep. Deadly Knitshade took to her yarnstorm with a dazzling display of cotton-reel flinging to raise her floating flurry of flying fruits of justice above the church’s door.
Deadly Knitshade goes a bit McGuiver
No undergarments!
Across the city to Shoreditch where Lady Loop took the lead. She twisted and twined her vine of colourful crochet about the railings of a sunsoaked St Leonards around the Oranges and Lemons letterbox, while the haircuts and high-heels of Hoxton hurried by.
Lady Loop longs for longer arms
Sunshine, shadows and stitched citrus
Jumping onto a passing double-decker carriage the Yarn Corps hurried through the city streets to Shorn-a the Dead’s green and grassy glorious St Dunstans. There she braved the insect world of the undergrowth to deck the graveyard bushes with knitted globes of fruit.
Shorn-a the Dead: one with nature
The fruit of the yarn bush is not edible
The gargoyles on the rooftop of St Dunstan’s stopped up their pointed ears as the Yarn Corps took a break from the odyssey to mauraud the Oranges and Lemons song to the mystical recording box of the Alt Artist maidens. Fear not, horrified reader, they shall not be releasing a single, and it would be a kindness to all if their effort were never to reach the ears of any living creature until the end of time.
A perfect spot for a shamefully bad sing song
Onwards to their final church and The Bluestocking Stitcher’s hooked homage to the great bells of Bow at St Mary Le Bow on the sunday-silent Cheapside. The simple smile of Dick Whittington showed he had only stuffing for brains. An authentic London mayor to end the day. The citrus clappers of the bells echoed his cluelessness with a dymo-label confusion of their own.
FYI Dick Whittington's crocheted arse amused us all
"Oi! Come back!" said the bells melodiously
Six churches across the city sang their citrus song anew wearing their Knit the City fruit-and-history-steeped yarnstorms with London pride.
Six pairs of tired feet headed for goblets of pear cider and tall tales of a crocheted and knitted crusade to tell and retell. In stories where stitched ships sailed, ghost gardens grew, justice jumped and jiggled, crocheted creepers crept, foliage fruited fluffily and a simple stuffed soul was called back to the city by a handmade harmony of bells.
Mischief managed
For tales straight from the Yarn Corps mouths see:
Bluestocking Stitcher’s The Tale of Dick Whittington and His Cat
Purple Purler’s “Oranges and Lemons,” said the bells of St Clements
Deadly Knitshade’s Flying Fruits of Justice for the Bells of Old Bailey
