Oi! Who’s that putting knitting where it clearly should not go?!?!
Operating from a secret underground wool-lined bunker in the heart of the busy metropolis of London, Knit the City’s Yarn Corps are artists who spend most of their lives operating under assumed names. The practice living their lives like every day people.
You could sit next to one of them on the tube, spill your pint on one of them in a crowded bar or inadvertently ‘pavement dance’ with them on busy Tottenham Court Road. You would never know they were sneaky stitchers.
Knit the City have been collectively sneaky stitching, and leaving their art in public, in the city of London since February 2009.
They were the first graffiti knitting art collective to move away from the ‘socks on things’ concept and tell ‘stitched stories’ (a concept conjured by their fearless fibre-flinging founder Deadly Knitshade) through their crafty creating of amigurumi creatures and characters to create installations in public places.
They were also the first group to coin the term ‘yarnstorming’ as a squishy, more creative and less in your face alternative to the popular ‘yarnbombing.
They also invented Post It Notes. Okay, that last one was a lie.
How did the art collective come to be?
Rumour has it Knit the City were brought together when a giant, damp and horribly tangled yarn monster rose from the depths of the Thames, and attempted to smash his way around the city in search of good cake and total destruction.
Each of the Yarn Corps individually battled the woolly chaos, until they discovered that their combined crafting powers were the only way to defeat it.
From that day forth they turned their needles, hooks and yarn to sneaky stitching as a collective whenever the city needed them. And sometimes just for the hell of it.
Four members of the original Yarn Corps are still active yarnstormers today and could strike anywhere with their handmade mischief. One is mysteriously missing in action.
Information on the Yarn Corps is sketchy at best but what little information is known has been gathered here.
Click each image to find out more about your friendly neighbourhood graffiti knitting street artists.
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THE FASTENER |
Inactive Yarn Corps Members:
Knitting Ninja
Please note: The identities of the Yarn Corps are classified to protect their quest for world yarnstorming domination. Suspecting any resemblance to any person, living or dead, will possibly mean you are set upon down a dark alleyway with knitted clubs and chloroform, and wake up with part of your memory ‘re-knitted’.
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loving the site and am setting myself up for my own little spot of knit-bomb stylie, cant wait… keep up the good work
Love your work girls. Keep it up the good work. Bomb the city, or is there a different term in theYarnCorps scene..?
Thanks.
We call is Yarnstorming. Bit less scary than all the bombing shenanigans. See here for a better explanation.
well done girls! i saw a feature on KTC last night on the swiss tv news, its brilliant! i wish i was in london to nick one of your knits, they are so adorable and malicious!
take it easy,
s.