Stitching up the city centre

Yarnbombing has taken over Oxford in an explosion of knitting graffiti.

Already epidemic in cosmopolitan cities such as London, the knitting gurus have made Oxford the target of a woolly avalanche, with knitted delights popping up on lampposts all over town.

Well, you wouldn’t want it to catch a cold now then, would you?

Known as yarnstorming, or yarnbombing, the trend has manifested itself throughout Oxford’s city centre, with knitting popping up in such places as Radcliffe Square, the High Street, Woodstock Road and Holywell Street.

So where is all this knitting coming from? Some have linked it to Knit The City http://knitthecity.com/, ‘your friendly neighbourhood graffiti knitting art collective’, but nobody really knows.

The Tab visited Jo Watkins of Oxford’s ‘Darn it and Stitch’ haberdashery, in hope of enlightenment.

She told us, ‘Knitting should be everywhere – if everything was wrapped in knitting that would be great. It will probably make everyone who sees it on their commute to work smile.’

Jo, in her lovely shop

Some lamppost knitwear feature badges, which The Tab examined with great interest.

The badges’ text, written in Spanish, leads you here, and translates as, ‘What is life? – an illusion, a shadow, a fiction’, presumably prompting the name ‘Illusion Shadow Fiction’. The Tab is unsure what this means. But it may be provocative.

Pompoms and woollen tree warmers are being hung in on trees and lampposts in Leicester in an innovative attempt to reduce fear of crime, according to a BBC story today. Could the same thing be happening in Oxford?

Does this make you feel safer? The Tab is sceptical about the likely positive effects of a fluffy tree warmer on your average Oxford criminal, but watch this space…

The Tree Monster, keeping your city safe