Yeah – I got asked to help with the Knitted Convenience (knitting yellow squares to cover an old toilet in Taylors Square) and felt pretty much what you wrote above.

this is precisely why I didn’t get involved. It’s just not my thing but I wanted to be careful not to dump on the stuff that a lot of my Canberra knitting friends got involved in. Each to their own. the effect in the end was quite impressive at the NGA but still, not really into it.

nice how you articulated my own jumble of conflicted emotions on this topic:) if youre going to do graffiti in any form, make it political, make it MEAN something. there are so many knitted square movements on at the moment i feel like a cad for not joining them but you just cant, just like i cant do every bloody KAL or swap, or give money to every charity i care about. after a while its just sound and fury, signifiying nothing….

agree (1000)

Did you read the last paragraph, Debbieann? “I don’t want to make anybody feel bad that actually contributed to one of the “graffiti” projects.” I don’t care if people participate. I truly don’t. I personally think they’re waste their time, but it doesn’t really offend me.

What offends me is that it gets all this media attention, and I’ve been asked by maybe 10 non-knitters in the past two weeks if I’m involved in the knitted graffiti, as if that’s the only interesting and worthwhile thing that’s happening in knitting. And judging by the dozen knitters I talked to last night at SnB, they all felt the same way. Yes, it’s all very exciting if you’re new to it, but this stuff has been going on for four years now. I’m just over it.

And HA! Let me know when you spot an article on the front page of the Herald about some international runner coming to Sydney and saying: “I don’t care if I freaking get arrested; I’m totally going to run on Bondi Beach!” Because you won’t. Because the media thinks that kooky knitters stories sell papers, and stories about exercising aren’t quite as interesting.

I also think World of Warcraft is pretty much a waste of time. My husband does not, and oddly, he doesn’t whine that I’m trying to make him feel bad about playing. I can accept that he finds value in something that I don’t.

Also, I’ve had lots of people (even other knitters) tell me that they don’t understand sock knitting. “Why would you bother?” So I give them my arguments for why I bother, which sometimes convinces them and sometimes doesn’t. I don’t get, like, OFFENDED that they don’t see value in something I do. We all put different values on our time.

It’s really weird. Most of the disagreement I’ve had on this issue is not that knit-graffiti is a worthwhile pursuit, but rather that I’m being mean-spirited in saying why I think it sucks. I don’t get that. I mean, if the inventor can travel around the world giving interview about why it’s a good thing, why can’t I (on my own blog) talk about why I think it’s a bad thing?

No, I do understand why the original artist wanted to do it. I think that juxtaposing handmade knitting against mass produced items is very interesting. I’m not questioning the intentions of anyone who actually feels that are making an artistic statement with their “knit graffiti.” I just also think that most of the people nowadays who participate are just imitators who haven’t actually given it any thought; they’re just participating because they saw it on the Internet and they want to get in on the bandwagon. It’s knitting’s version of a zombie flash mob.

We love the wool-burnin’ smell of graffiti knitting conflict in the morning. 🙂

There’s a ton of stuff we can say but rather than get into it all we’ll just state that we love what we do. And judging by the silly grins and lovely comments that we get, there are people out there that disagree with your words.

Each to their own. If something other than yarnstorming gives you that silly grin then more power to you.

We sincerely hope you are as happy with your knits as we are with ours.

Knit the City x

Hi Denise,

Thanks for your email – and the nice comment! I’m actually really interested in hearing your opinion about it. I expected more argument from folks within the “movement,” but I’ve been surprised how little there was. I really was looking forward to debating it with someone who actively participates and sees worth in it. I’d love to hear more about your position.

Here are a couple things I’m really curious about in particular:

1) Do you consider yourself mainly a knitter or mainly an artist? (Or do you even make a distinction?) Do you do knitting other than the graffiti items?

2) How do you justify participating in graffiti culture to those who think graffiti = vandalism and visual clutter? Do you ever go back to clean up or remove the items after they’ve been hanging for a while?

3) When/how did you hear about knit graffiti? Was it through Knitta Please, or did you come up with it on your own?

4) What do you think about all the media attention? You mentioned the “selling out” aspect. Is that something you’re seeing from within, or do you think it’s just a false perception based on the media?

Love to hear more from you, either as a comment on w-g or at your own site. (I’ll post this as a comment there as well.) I’m looking forward to it. Like I said, I didn’t want to come off as tarring the entire movement with the same brush, but my perception (as an outsider) is that only a very small percentage of the people doing it have any concept of it as an art project. Everyone else just seems to be jumping on a bandwagon… but I suppose it’s debatable whether that is necessarily a bad thing anyway.

Look forward to hearing from you!

Just a point, debbieann: no-one can ‘make’ you feel anything. If you were offended by Kris’s opinion, it’s your choice. She’s free to write what she thinks here and you’re free not to read it if it offends you.

Alasdair – thank you so much for your comment. I’ve been dealing with some nasty blowback from this post online and it’s heartening to see it taken in the spirit in which it was intended. I think with regards to your project, my initial objections to it can mostly be attributed to bad timing. I couldn’t help but see it in light of all the media attention that “knit graffiti” has been getting, so it looked as if you were jumping on a bandwagon. I apologise for tarring you with the “guerilla knitting” brush.

I also apologise for sharing details of the project if it hasn’t been finalised. When you spoke about it at the Knitters Guild workshop, I assumed that it was happening as presented. I’m really glad to hear you’re not wedded to the “turn it into blankets” idea, if only because the cheap yarn people use for outdoor projects isn’t usually nice for people. (Granted, it’s better than nothing…)

> is it really possible to offend someone by simply displaying a knit in public?

Heh. You haven’t seen some of the shocker jumpers I’ve seen in the Knitting Guild. (Three-dimensional cockatoos, anyone?)

Seriously, thanks for your input. I feel much better about recommending the project now…

Kris, I’m not sure I was all that mean. I think I gave as good as we got. You called it “so very LOOK-AT-ME-I’M-HIP”, you said what we were doing would make non-knitters think knitting is a waste of time, you said “99% is just vandalism for the sake of it”, you said “99% of the people involved with the graffiti knitting “movement” are just imitating something they saw on the Internet and performing their hipness for the Muggles”. I think if you are expecting people not to have a slightly emotional reaction to that then you perhaps need to rethink. Of course we are going to be a bit put out. And you admitted it yourself when you said “This is coming off sounding really negative”. A quick ‘I didn’t mean it’ at the end won’t take away what you said before.

I can’t speak for these people who seem to be trying to force you to join in. In my case I am fighting off people who want to join in. It’s an odd world, eh?

As for being a ‘real knitter’ and being more sensitive to the ‘trendy hipsters’, I consider myself okay on that scale. I run the biggest knitting group in the UK, raise money for charity, organise the London Knit Crawl every WWKIP day, and teach people to knit at every single weekly meeting almost every week of the year (we get Christmas off). What I love about our group is that we teach for free, and tons of those trendy hipsters come along to learn, get taught, fall in love with the knit, and pass it on to others. I couldn’t be more thrilled with that.

You also talk about ‘laundering them and giving to the homeless’. I find this a bit much. It’s got a very ‘holier than thou’ feel to it.

It’s like I said above, sure there are practical uses for all materials people use for art. Wood can become a chair for ill people to sit down on rather than a carving, paint can make the front of a rundown shack in the slums seems like home rather than be stuck on a canvas on a museum wall, metal can be fashioned to make a boat to sail to sea and fish for a whole village rather than be twisted into a sculpture. I see your point. I really do. But that surely means that for every single thing you do that isn’t ‘for the good of humankind’ and it merely for pleasure, that you need to think about maybe giving that away to improve the quality of other people’s lives. Yes?

You also called us “lazy (in the sense of creativity)” which made me sigh. So much thought and work goes into my stuff. And every one of those knitters has sat down and made stitch after stitch themselves. That’s what is so lovely about knitting. The creating part that you do with your own two hands.

There are copy cats. There are people who did not knit that scarf for that lamppost specifically. But the fact is that it’s fun. It’s just fun to do. And people want in on the fun. When you’re out there doing a small yarnstorm, or a big one, people stop by with smiley faces and they like it. I have never once had an angry person shake their fist at me and tell me to stop being so bloody ridiculous. People came up and hugged our phonebox cosy. They hugged a phonebox in Parliament Square in the rain. Sour-faced commuters in Covent Garden went all giggly, and thought of their grandmas and wanted to get their paws on something crafty then and there.

So some of it isn’t Van Gogh of the Yarn. Beginner knitters and ugly-yarn users are still ok by me. And some of it does get stinky and soggy. I personally think any graffiti knitter worth their cashmerino would wander back and chop it down if they felt they needed to because it was becoming a bio-hazard.

I also think tired council workers probably sigh over their scissors sometimes. It can’t all be a fun fair for everyone. But I’m not sure it’s the blight on the world you seem to be pointing at.

And lastly your main point is that “It’s like one person comes up with an interesting idea, the media latch on to it, and suddenly we all feel compelled to buy into the story that they’re selling.” The media are to blame for a lot. The worldwide panic that shoved us into recession, the swine flu horror that everyone is threatening to go looting over. So they are a bit in love with graffiti knitting at the moment. I can’t see what’s so bad about that. To me the fact stuff is out there reminding people that they don’t have to think inside the box with their crafts is great.

I’ve met Magda Sayeg. She came to London and we did a bit of sneaky stitching. Far from the shouty in your face I’m-gonna-graffiti-knit-the-universe American you apologised for, I found her to be a nice chick. She takes herself with a pinch of salt, and can’t quite believe putting a bit of knitting on her door handle got her where she is. I’m not sure if you have alerted Magda to the fact you felt you had to apologise on her behalf. Hopefully you have.

When you write something on the internet people are bound to respond in lots of different ways. Some will hooray and some will click disagree. Sometimes it’ll be to your face. Sometimes it’ll be a link via a link via a link, and unless you hunt for it you won’t see it. That’s how the internet works. It may not be the politest of societies but there you are.

Hopefully I’ve been fair and rational about this. I’m happy to hear opposing views. I’m happy for people to insult me too as long as it’s funny. I do appreciate funny. 🙂

Ugh. I was really happy with how this conversation was going before, and I really want to thank Debbieann, Denise, Knit the City, and Alasdair for taking the post in the spirit in which it was intended. I appreciate you guys arguing with me and opening my eyes a little bit.

Unfortunately I’ve been taking a lot of personal hits (mostly on Twitter and Ravelry) from people who took this post a LOT more personally than you guys did. I don’t see any more productive headway happening, so I’m going to close it off. I’m looking forward to talking to you guys more about your projects in person.