An Escapade with Hawksley Workman’s Tour Bus or; When a yarn bomb fails, and you have to ask permission, is it still a yarn bomb?

8 03 2010
So last night, I went to go see Hawksley Workman with my lady B (who is rad). Intro by Lonely was seriously fucking radical. We had lots of fun screaming like little girls when the Man himself came on stage. Dude with the violin was great and I would totally go see him perform solo. Overall show was excellent and we loved every minute.
After the show, our plan was to yarn bomb the tour bus, so we brought some little magnetic knitted magnet things and we were going to casually walk past the bus and stick them to the door and take off and no one would be none the wiser that we had done it.  It didn’t actually happen that way.  Turns out that buses these days are made of fibreglass and shit, like most other vehicles, so this how it actually went down (with some embellishment):
Me: Fuck, they don’t stick to this shit.
B: Crap.  What do we do?
Me: Those roadies are watching us, let’s go figure this out.
B: Okay, what if we’re just honest and tell them.
Me: That might just work.
(we walk over to the roadies)
Me: You’re roadies, right?
Roadie 1 (with dreads): Uh, yea?
Me: Okay, here’s the deal. We have these little knitted magnets. We were going to stick them to the bus and go.
Roadie 1: We thought you were trying to break into the bus
Roadie 2 (clean cut): And it’s not magnetic?
Me: No, it’s made of vinyl or something. Can we just give these magnets to you since they won’t stick to the bus?
B: We’re doing knitted graffitti and we wanted to tag the tour bus.
(both roadies laugh at this)
Roadie 2: Knitted graffiti?!? That’s rad!
Me: Yea, it was supposed to be sneaky, but since this shit isn’t working, we gotta ask your permission.
Roadie 2: There must be someplace on this bus to stick them
Me: I think it’s crap. There’s no metal anywhere.
Roadie2: What about the bolts [on the equipment trailer]
Me and B; Right on!
So here’s pictures from that. Cool! Thanks roadies, you guys are the shit, my bruthas! I gotta say that the Hawk has some solid roadies to flow with that. I think we probably looked like some crazy groupies at first, but we just wanted to yarnbomb the bus.
So then, we mosied on over to the parkade and stuck this one:
After that, we got up to some other shenanigans with a tree at the Kelowna Law Courts:
 …and a light standard (that WAS magnetic!!!)

Nothing was open after this, and we were HUNGRY, so we ended up at Boston Pizza and watched the dog show on TSN, which was both weird and wonderful. And that’s how we ended the night.


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3 responses

17 04 2010
GarnGuerilla

They are so cool your magnets!
And I’d say it is a yarn bomb – or are graffiti made with permisson no graffiti anymore??
by the way, how long do your magnetic yarn bombs stay where you put them?

27 06 2010
AccompliceKim

Yarn wrap NON LIVING THINGS ONLY!

Yarn Bombing is UNHEALTHY for trees!!

Most yarn being used is ACRYLIC, which is PLASTIC, is NOT biodegradable & gives pests a safe cover from birds looking for food a place to hide while they bore into the tree, weakening it.

PLEASE, Yarn wrap NON LIVING THINGS ONLY!

30 06 2010
knitified

Hi there,

Thanks for your comment! I appreciate your concern and compassion for living things and would like to let you know that in addition to my role as an artist, I am also a gardener and botany enthusiast (plant geek) and an animal lover.

Most of my yarn bombs don’t last very long and are usually removed very quickly (sometimes within hours and I’m sure that the one at the Kelowna law courts was one of those). They get taken away by municipal workers, souvenir seekers and I suspect to some extent (and my preference) by the homeless.

As a self-professed “yarn snob” I work primarily with natural fibres like soy, cotton and alpaca. If (on rare occasion) I do choose a synthetic yarn, I’ll use it for things I know will be removed soon.

Thanks again for commenting,
knitified*

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