Weaponry

On May 22nd my LYS, Hand Held Knitting organized a yarn bombing to coincide with Fayetteville’s first Block St. Block Party and our chosen day for World Wide Knit in Public Day. Last time we yarn bombed we put 16 inch squares all around the town square. This time we hung them mostly on Block St. to coincide with the festivities of the day.

It was nice to hang these “bombs” while people were walking around because several people were curious and asked questions. Any opportunity to promote knitting or talk about it is fine with me…

These are two of the squares I made. It’s nice to get to use up scrap yarn and make something pretty, and Hand Held was generous with spare yarn from old projects as well, so I got to play with even more yarn.

Intrepid young yarn bombers

These ladies hung this bomb near the corner of the square. It’s lovely to get to hang a little piece of knitted art for all to see.

World Wide Knit in Public Day

These are some of Hand Held’s regulars taking it to the streets to show the world that they are proud knitters.

It was a HOT day, but we all made the best of it.

Looking back, this was a very strange day. While all of this wonderfulness was going on in Fayetteville, just an hour and a half away, my hometown, Joplin, MO was about to get possibly the most damaging tornado in U.S. history. I don’t know how to describe the level of devastation aptly, but if you live in the U.S. you’ve probably seen pictures or videos on the news.

After the block party I was at home cooking and my brother from Minnesota called and said he was concerned because there was bad weather in Joplin and he had lost a call with my dad and could not get in touch with him again. I didn’t think much of it. We get tornado warnings/watches in this area all the time. I called my mom a few minutes later and she said the storm had just passed and that they were fine but it had seemed close. I don’t think any of us understood the extreme level of damage until later that evening. They had no power, so they didn’t see the images and videos on the internet that I did later that evening. Then, that night or the next day, I talked to my dad again and he reported that the tornado had changed paths just FOUR blocks from their house. It all began to sink in. My family has been incredibly fortunate to be spared in this tragedy. Many, many, many were not that lucky. If you want to help, this site has many suggestions for how to help. There are still many people missing, and the town is slowly rebuilding. Please keep my hometown in your thoughts, and if you can, please donate.

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