Casting Call For Volunteer Knitters and Crocheters

Last fall at GeekMom we wrote about guerrilla knitter Robyn Love’s “Messages to the Universe” project for Maker Faire NYC. Robyn had put a call out to fabric artists requesting donations of 12″ x 12″ squares that were then sewn together into yarn “flames” and draped from one of the rockets on the site at New York’s Hall of Science. Previously-collected messages of hope were also written out on cards and pinned onto many of the squares. At the close of Maker Faire, the knitted flames were cut apart, sewn into blankets, and distributed to the homeless through Warm Up America while the messages were collected into an art book. For my family, the project was one of the most memorable visuals in a weekend stuffed with eye candy, and we were delighted when it won a special design award at the Faire.

Now Robyn is working on a new project–a 1,500 granny-square installation to be hung from the London Plane trees lining Cheongju, Korea’s Avenue of Trees during their 2011 International Craft Biennale–and once again, she’s asking for help. If you’re a knitter or crocheter who has time to stitch up a 20″ x 20″ square by September 3, read on:

I will be installing squares of colour on each of the approximately 1,500 trees that line the roadway called “The Avenue of Trees” in Cheongju, Korea in order to create a kind of rhythmic effect of slowly transitioning colour–think colour for music. The coloured squares will be organized on-site to create the patterns and transitions, and since the roadway only accommodates cars, one interesting challenge of the project is that these color transitions will need to work at driving speed.

If you’re interested in contributing to this project, you can use crochet or knitting in any stitch, and you can use any yarn you’d like: wool, acrylic, whatever. The only real guidelines I have are that the completed square must be 50 cm/20″ and it must be one colour. I don’t have a pattern yet–I have just been making very large granny squares–but I will have a pattern soon for those that need one.

So, GeekMoms: anyone interested in becoming a foot soldier in Robyn’s artisan army? Stop by Robyn’s blog, My Fair Isle, or email Robyn at thehousemuseum(at)gmail.com for further details–and feel free to upload a picture of your completed square to GeekMom’s flickr page, as well!

(Video of another project: Robyn’s water tower crochet cozy.)