My friend Odilia was organizing the livestream event and asked me if I'd like to yarnbomb it since the theme was 'marking the map' and I jumped at the chance. Crochet for me really has been a wonderful journey and I wish I could convey to you just how amazing it's actually been. I'll have a go anyway;
I've always loved making things, so when I bought myself a gorgeous pair of turquoise suede boots and fancied a poncho to go with them I didn't think I would have any trouble as ponchos were in fashion at the time. WRONG!
Again the turquoise matching problem; no yarn in the right colour anywhere either!
So I went for purple instead and a big hairy poncho was born, along with a parasitic twin-my ongoing obsession with crochet!
I have never looked back and always love to challenge myself to try new and more elaborate things with crochet-I tried amigurumi fairly early on and that brought out the beautiful 'porno monkey', a gift for a friend which was only ever meant to be a monkey but when i added a little banana to her hand and tried to copy the mouth from the pattern she took on the persona of a sex doll and one thing led to another........
I do have pictures of her but I'm apprehensive about sharing them in case I should offend anybody's sensibilities.
So then we went to Australia and I felt the urge to produce Aussie wildlife amigurumis which were a big hit (especially the galah I made for my brother which i embellished with real galah feathers we had found on our travels) We were WWOOFing at the time and our hosts asked me to make them a bunch to give to friends and family when they went to Europe visiting, so that was quite a significant pin in my crocheting map!
They happened to be goat farmers and one of our jobs was feeding baby goats-when you have more than one baby goat to feed it can be tricky keeping the milk warm enough for the other babies who are*patiently waiting*
for their turn (if you know anything about goats you will know this is a physical impossibility for them) So I made these handy bottle cozies with topical appliques of milk bottles and udders on them.
I only have these pics of it half assembled on a polystyrene head I'm afraid, but you get the idea. Also can you spot the problem with wearing the scarf and the hat together? (It has to do with them touching each other...)
When we got back to the UK and people saw these pics they were amazed and someone suggested I open an Etsy shop-I'd never heard of Etsy so I looked it up and thought that it would be a good way to offer my talents to the world. So I opened Berthas Bizarre Bazaar in february 2012, not long before my Mum was diagnosed with cancer as it turned out. So it actually became a handy outlet for all the things I was madly crocheting (did you know crochet is a very meditative activity-I don't know how I'd have got through the last year without it!)
So one of the last things I made before we sadly lost Mum in October was the bumbomb of my last post-a mandala pattern I tested for a fellow etsian and which I now use as a saddle cover for my bike.
This is a heavily abridged version of my crochet journey but I hope it gives you a little idea of how I came to be at this point in my life-You can pick up the story of how I came to be a yarnbomber if you go to the start of this blog.
So the only thing left to do is show you the pictures of what I did yesterday to celebrate TEDxBrum: Marking the Map and International YarnBomb Day :D
You might notice some significant items along the rainbow pathway I made to wrap around the railings.
The other items were donated by wonderful friends and I used them to mark a trail from the car park to the livestreaming event location
So, what did you to to celebrate International YarnBomb Day? I'd love to see anyone else's yarnbombs :D
