I only pay moderate attention to news about yarnbombing these days. I think yarnbombing is a cool art movement but I also feel like the world got a little oversaturated with it in the last year. Daarom, I tend to skip over most articles about random people throwing up some guerilla crochet in their cities. Echter, I do keep my eye out for cool stories and interesting takes on yarnbombing and that’s exactly what I saw when reading about the Aunty Social stitch ‘n bitch group in Blackpool (in het Verenigd Koninkrijk).
Knittaz with Attitude
The yarnbombing group is called the Yarn Bobbings and is a smaller niche of a community stitch group. The larger group is called Knittaz with Attitude and consists of about forty people who meet weekly at a local community center. What really interested me about it is that this group is actually part of a larger community network called Aunty Social.
AntiSocial vs Aunty Social
Het idee achter de naam is om mensen van achter hun tv-en computerschermen en in de echte wereld en de grotere gemeenschap. De geestige naam herinnert ons eraan dat er waarde aan het beëindigen van uw eenzame anti-sociaal gedrag en bij te dragen aan iets binnen de grotere gemeenschap. De groep wil ook mensen specifiek aan te moedigen om uit hun huizen in de nacht, zodat ze zien dat hun gemeenschap als een vriendelijke, sociale plek in plaats van een slechte, enge plek. Aunty Social seems like a great friendly woman you want to get to know, rechts? I like this idea.
Yarnbombing and Other Niches
The Aunty Social Group has a little bit of something for everyone. There is a mobile cinema meeting for people interested in the world of non-mainstream film. There are lessons in social media for organizations that could stand to leverage this knowledge. And then there’s the Yarn Bobbins, the group for yarnbombers in Knittaz with Attitude. Their slogan is “keep Blackpool toasty!” which is not only in line with the warmth of crochet and knit bombs but also with the bigger message of the Aunty Social group. I think it’s a nice way to show that yarnbombing and community can go hand-in-hand rather than being at odds.
