This years Brighton Festival began on Sat 5th May and to help launch the whole shebang I was asked to help deliver a small series of Yarn Bombs.

‘Yarn Bombing?’ I thought to myself. I was aware of the concept, but I had never knitted anything in my life. And the small amount of time left before the launch of the festival was full of other work to be done and was definitely not the time for me to be learning crochet skills. Luckily I knew just the people to get involved.

My good friend, and fellow artist,  Mazcan had been chatting to me about this street art movement just days before I was asked about the project. She had created some little crochet woolies for some bollards at an event for White Night 2011 in Brighton and had enjoyed it so much that she was now eyeing up lamp posts around town to make their lives a little cosier.

I also know a group of girls who hold a regular ‘Stitch and Bitch’ evening. From this group, a young lady called Tora Huston, who is a whizz with the knitting needles and regularly knits fantastic outfits for festival attire and bizarre toys as gifts for friends. WIN!

Also from this group is a super seamstress extrordinaire by the name of Scarletti. Again, another amazing outfitter who had created such delights as a badger hoodie (MINE!), a sand crab hoodie, Max suit ( where the wild things are), Big Love Yeti fluff and, well, the list goes on and on…

Last and not least, another fabrics whizz and knitter of beards, yes, BEARDS! Charlie Bear or Charlie at Crafternoon. This young lady holds creative workshops and makes costumes for festivals and carnivals and carnival festivals. Never a dull moment at her nipple tassle making workshops, she jumped at the chance to come and do some fabric based art for the breasts, er, I mean streets!

So with knitting needles and sewing machines at the ready, we only had one more task to overcome. How do we get the logo on to fabric.

Cue Monsieur James Alias at Patch-Works.Net. His skill, expertise and embroidery printer completed the look and sealed the deal by creating the Brighton Festival logo in fabric.

With the work now complete, the team took to the streets of Brighton in the dead of night and aided by our 10 foot companion, Scarletti, they were able to reach the tops of the lamp posts. Which was good as we didn’t have a ladder.

The Yarn bombs are now in place and you can see them if you visit New Road in Brighton. They shall be up for the duration of the festival and maybe even longer. Keep an eye out and you may even see more in the near future.

NB: Not all of the lamp posts were ‘Yarn’ Bombed. Some had fabric and applique techniques. No Lamp Posts were harmed in the making of this project.