If you don’t know what ‘yarn bombing’ is then let me explain. It is basically decorating things with knitting and crochet. Usually it is the unexpected, boring things like fences, bridges, street lamps and sculptures. Most often it is done with enormous humour and creativity. If you have never come across this yarn graffiti before I urge you to do a little on-line searching. But be warned, you will descend down a rabbit hole of joy and fascination.
Until a couple of weeks ago I was a yarn-bomb virgin. I had not yet been invited to get involved in a community installation and certainly hadn’t made my own clandestine assault on the local public bench. But then I was motivated to jazz up the new wheelchair of my friend Rufus.
An Angel
Rufus is the most loving and fabulous boy, he also has Angelman syndrome. You can read about him on his parents’ brilliant blogs here and here . As Rufus gets bigger he needs more and more sophisticated equipment to make sure he can live an active and exciting life. I know from my own experience that access equipment is often ingenious but frequently quite boring to look at. It would be very possible to use tape and stickers to ‘pimp’ wheelchairs, but I think the worry is that as children grow you need to upgrade the sizes very frequently. That is why yarn bombing is a perfect alternative. Making something quickly in crochet means that you can cover boring bits of wheelchair very easily. Then when you need to hand the chair back for a new model, you can quickly cut away the decoration.
Color Choice
Dan and Lucy measured the sections for the chair for me and I made small colourful strips in cotton double crochet. This was my first attempt and I made the pieces slightly smaller than the measurements so that I could stretch the crochet around the tubes. For this first attempt I tried to create a subtle rainbow. Dan and Lucy are super-stylish and whilst I wanted to create a bit of colourful interest I also didn’t want to be too impractical or embarrassing. I borrowed the chair for about fifteen minutes and whip stitched the sections in place. We will wait to see how durable they are.
Crochet, knitting and craft is really all about ‘love’ for me. I cannot think of a better use of my craft super-powers than pimping Rufus’s ride. He brings such joy to our world. His chariot of fire should be just as joyful.
If you have any good ideas for a wheelchair will you leave a comment or send an image? I am thinking about future versions.
What a lovely idea and what a happy little chap.
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