Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Stupid plant tricks: NOID trees

Yarn-bombing trees isn't a new thing, but this is the first time I've seen it in person, and I wish I'd gotten more pictures. (I had somewhere to be; couldn't be helped.)


The whole downtown area appears to have been done; there are many much better photos here.

There's also an intermittently awkward and under-edited interview with one of the organizers, if you're really interested:


7 comments:

Peter said...

Poor squirrels, nobodies knitting sweaters for them.

Paul said...

Don't believe I've ever heard of this before. Seems a waste of perfectly good aftgans. Do the knittings just stay up all winter? (No I really didn't want to sit through the video. heh)

mr_subjunctive said...

Paul:

The idea seems to be that they'll stay up until 1) they're vandalized, 2) they fall apart of their own accord, or 3) February. Whichever happens first. My money's on #1, but we'll see how it goes.

Claude said...

I certainly hope that yarn is biodegradable...

Yeah, I've heard of this, not sure if I approve of it, or like it, or what. I guess if you're a bored knitter, then what the heck...

mr_subjunctive said...

Claude:

Well, wool is a protein, so it ought to biodegrade fine. Acrylics aren't, and that might be more of a problem -- I really have no idea if acrylics could be harmful to the environment or not. Not sure which the knitters would have used or whether that was taken into consideration, but it's Iowa City, so I'd say the odds are that they were being environmentally conscious about it to some degree, at least.

Bad Kitty said...

This has been a thing up here in the Boston area. I thought it was funny at first (they also do signs and parking meters) but then the weather hits and the knitting starts to look, well, gross. And it stays gross looking for a long, long time (usually until some good citizen grabs the wet, moldy mess and cuts it down). So now I'm a lot less fond of it.

It would still be cute if the knitters would take it down after a week or two.

CelticRose said...

Knitter here.

Acrylic yarn is plastic, so it's definitely not biodegradable. There's a yarn bombing outside the library in Tempe, AZ, that was done mostly in acrylic yarn, and it's lasted more than a year already and still looks surprisingly good.

Natural fiber yarns, such as wool or cotton, are biodegradable and will likely fall off in time.

The video doesn't say what type of fiber they used in this yarn bombing, but they did say that they planned to take them down in February.