Yarn bombing - what's not to like?

So, I was looking at this on-line news item about yarn bombing and one negative comment posted after it said something like 'I hate this, surely you people could spend the time more usefully knitting socks or something'. My first thought was oh yeh just another person who lists as his hobby (and it was a man's name) pouring ice-cold water on other people's thoughtful and creative endeavours a.k.a trolling. Then I began to wonder more about what lay behind the remark, just what was it about this particular kind of activity that had rattled his particular cage?

Granny square covered craft and folk art museum in Los Angeles

option 1 - he doesn't like more colourful streets. Maybe he's of a naturally melancholic disposition and anything that brightens up his environment and challenges his grey mood is to be avoided.

Feels more like a playground now!

option 2 - he likes more colourful streets just not softly textured ones. Maybe he's into brutal modernist architecture with all those hard lines and surfaces (they're so manly) and softer texture is a betrayal of the purist's treasured concrete landscape.

option 3 - he doesn't like knitting/crochet that's escaped from it's more usual place ie on the body. Maybe he copes with the world by organising and categorising it, keeping everything separate so it doesn't get mixed up (like dangerous chemicals that might inadvertently mix and cause a dangerous reaction).

A third of heat loss is through the head

option 4 -  he doesn't like art on the streets. Maybe he thinks art is to be treasured and cossetted, kept safe in climate controlled galleries, protected from the ravages of weather (and of course dogs).

Sorry, nowhere's safe.

option 5 - he doesn't think knitting/crochet can be art or that knitters/crocheters can be artists. Maybe he thinks that art is something that can only happen with a liquid medium and some sort of applicator and that needles/hooks and yarn don't count.

When you press the nozzle, yarn comes out...

 option 6 - he's a conservative, male chauvinistic, narrow-minded misery-guts.

 Answers on a postcard please...

Two iconic London objects (one slightly altered)

When I can I'm making textile art or blogging about it; here's my gallery; or follow me on Twitter for knitting and textile art news.



note: any search on line brings up loads of great images. Here's links for where I found the ones above, finding the original source was in some cases impossible.
LA building
Coloured steps
Bus Shelter with hat
Dog in gallery
Knit covered spray cans
Knit covered London telephone box