Friday, August 20, 2010

Big

Change is afoot my friends. You take a step, imagining that you know where the next step will land, and whoa - look out!

Over the weekend, I listened to a phone message from David Blumenthal at Lion Brand Yarns. It was something like this, "Robyn, call me. I have a very special opportunity that I want to talk to you about."

When I hear David's gravelly voice on the answering machine using the words "special" and "opportunity," I know the wisest thing is to run in the opposite direction. Cases of yarn occupying valuable real estate in my living room can not be far behind. And I wasn't wrong. At any moment, the UPS guy will be ringing the bell and we all will be bumping our knees against a case of the most colourful colours available in their yarn, Hometeam USA.

It is all in aid of this:


The Mercury/Titan rockets at the New York Hall of Science.

This year, Maker Faire, a DIY craftacular extravaganza, is happening in Flushing Meadows Corona Park in our fair borough of Queens. They expect 90,000 people to attend. Among the wide variety of makers, inventors and innovators displaying their wares will be Lion Brand Yarns, natch. David wants me to yarnbomb one of the rockets. It is NOT an advertisement for Lion Brand Yarns, but they are the sponsor.

Here was my thought process: Yes! NOOOO! Yes. NOOOOO! Maybe. NOOOOOOO! And finally, yes.

The time frame is very short. It totally screws up our plans to be in Newfoundland. It is a whole bucketful of crazy, hell, it is the Great Lakes of crazy. But I'm doing it.

The plan is to make a piece that will spiral up the rocket, 12" wide with colour changes every 12". Each square of colour will have a message to the universe pinned to it or stitched in it. (Kind of like Tibetan prayer flags - the idea is to let the messages be caught in the wind and enter the Universe.) I estimate we will need about 600 squares. Lion Brand will be hosting a couple of square making workshops at a location to be determined. People also will be invited to mail in squares. It will be a communal effort.

12" x 12"

Join us!

9 comments:

Nathan said...

Enjoy! Sounds like a cool project.

urban muser said...

sounds like an amazing project. i'd love to join the effort. keep us posted!

Taos Sunflower said...

Bummer about your trip, but it sounds like a cool project!

Robyn said...

Hey Nathan, now that you have a little more time on your hands....do you knit??? : )

Robyn said...

I will definitely be posting more details as they get firmed up, which should be soon since the event is happening really soon!!

And yes, Martie, it was a tough decision to make but we will still get up there for the winter, even if it means taking the dreaded ferry ride in late November...yikes!

Rilla Marshall said...

whoa whoa whoa - you're gonna need some help with this!! what's the time frame? Maybe I could devote my craft fair sitting time to knitting up some squares...

Xxx. Xxxx said...

I'm in for at least a square if they don't mind the long distance? Sounds insane and terribly fun!

Melissa said...

Sounds like fun! I will definitely check back in for more info. If I have time, I'll contribute a square or two!

dorinalouise said...

you know . . i like these communal projects. i'm glad you're doing it . . and there are lots of knitting hands in this house to help out.