NewBo Veggies: super cute, and already mostly gone!

We're excited about the opening of the NewBo City Market on 3rd St. SE later this month. To celebrate its arrival, we made some cute little amigurumi veggies, and decided to install them (using a hook and fishing line) on lamp posts along the street.

We installed them on Thursday, and by Sunday afternoon all but two were gone. If you want to see the garlic and corn, get yourself down there quickly, before they're all taken. Perhaps the patrons of the local drinking establishments couldn't resist jumping up and grabbing the cute little vegetables on their way home Saturday night.

Alas, the ephemeral nature of yarn tags!

Library Construction Site Tag

The Foundrix installs a new tag on the library construction fence, corner of 4th Ave. & 5th St. SE.:

It's all the way to the left (near the SUV driving by):

House tagged! 7/23/12

Pictures of the house tagging project in the New Bohemia neighborhood. Find it at the corner of 11th Ave and 3rd St. SE in Cedar Rapids Iowa! (Thanks to The Foundrix for making the slideshow.)

Our 2x2xU Board

Here's the board we created for 2x2xU, an annual public art exhibition hosted by the New Bohemia Group  -- it's on display in the window of the house we tagged:

Here's a close-up of the teeny-tiny table and chair inside the house (previously a butterfly house):

7/11/12 Out with the old tag, in with the new

Lots of people had seen our tags outside Brewed Awakenings on First Ave., but the weather had taken its toll. Here's the old tag's funeral:

The Foundrix sews on her new tag:

A few minutes after the new tag appeared, a couple of guys (probably Coe students) walked by, noticed it was new, and gave it a little pat.

5/5/12 Goodwill "Recycle in Style" fashion show appearance

Our beloved chair sat next to the runway at Goodwill's 4th Annual Recycle in Style Fashion Show.

Cloak & Tagger added a yarn tag (which disappeared soon after) to Goodwill's downspout just before the show.

Ragbrai tag

Yarntagrz Facebook page fan Anne Salamon pointed out that the Yarntagrz ought to put up a tag on the Ragbrai route!  Awesome idea. Especially since many of the riders may not quite get as far as our awesome tagged house (post on that to come later).

So I whipped up a Ragbrai-themed tag.  It's orange, blue, and green--for the Orange Tribe, Blue Tribe, and Green Tribe, the three groups of Ragbrai riders.

The tag has our QR code on it.

It's outside Sycora Bakery, where I also bought some Kolaky cookies.  I'd recommend them.

Bikers were already in Czech Village when I put up the tag at about noon today!

Tags for EcoFest, 4/21/12

Street sign at the corner of 3rd St. & 11th Ave. SE

CSPS building

Door handle cozy on CSPS front entrance

CSPS is looking good after post-flood renovation

Tagging the Chair: the Process

We salvaged the chair from the CR Habitat for Humanity ReStore (before that, it had served in a GEOLOGY classroom -- yes, gum is stuck under its seat). Then we invited visitors to our table at the Maker Faire to help us embellish it. We added a few finishing touches at the home of Foundrix.

At the Maker Faire, people voted on where we should put it. First stop: the break room of the Cherry Building, in the New Bohemia neighborhood.

The Chair

Our Big Tagging Project has been keeping us busy, but not too busy to work on a few smaller tags.

We started our most recent smaller project, a yarn-covered chair, a few weeks ago at the Maker's Fair at Lindale Mall.  Passers-by helped us by crocheting tags, or just sewing swatches onto the chair.  We added a few more pieces, and voila!

We had a chair to deliver to its first viewing space, the Cherry Building!  We chose this space because the Cherry Building is an inspiration to all of us who love the New Bo neighborhood, and who are thrilled with the way that area is bouncing back from the flood.

Come visit the chair in its first location!  Eventually, it'll be moved to . . . somewhere else in the city!

Tiny Bunnies--the tiniest yarn tag!

While we're working on our Very Large Tags for the house at 10th Ave and 3rd St, we've got some other projects going on . . .

One of them is Tiny Bunnies.

Yeah, they're cute, but they're also part of a larger movement!
The Tiny Bunny Movement has this to say about itself on its facebook page:

We make tiny bunnies and leave them places for people to find and adopt. It brightens their day!

Well, OK!  That's simple!  And it takes just no time at all--and just the tiniest scrap of yarn--to make a tiny bunny to leave somewhere.  I've left them at Bruggers, Brewed Awakenings, and TCR.  I think of them as tiny bits of yarn graffiti!

Some of our younger members have helped spread the Tiny Bunnies at Lindale Mall when we were there for the Maker Fair.  Here are some of the bunnies:

The Ravelry TBM group (where you can find knit and crochet patterns for tiny bunnies) suggests that a small post-it or tag can be left with the bunnies, so I made some.

The tags make sure that people know that they weren't left behind on accident, but it also makes them into more of a gift than a piece of graffiti.

Whether they're yarn graffiti, or gifts for anyone to take home, these bunnies are pretty fun.

Progress on House/porch tags

Moving along on making tags for the house at 3rd. St and 10th ave.  Here are some tags for the porch railing spindles.

There are 6 here, and we need 27 of them . . .

Project idea: Cover a house!

Next yarntagging project: a house.
OK, not the whole house, but a porch.

I wanted to work on a large-scale tagging project that would be located in one of the areas of CR that was hit by the flood and is struggling back. I drove around a bit looking for a location, and spotted this house over in the New Bo neighborhood. It's on the corner of 3rd St. and 10th Ave. SE, just a block down from the Cherry Building.

I like the neighborhood because it's definitely seen better times (the house itself has boarded up windows) but is also coming back to life with all the New Bo renovations, including CSPS, Cherry building, indoor market.

This house needs some yarn love.

So my idea is to cover the porch: spindles, posts, and the railing. It would also be cool to also cover the back wall with thrifted afghans. I would like to thrift a chair, maybe a big rocker, and cover it, and leave it on the porch.

I think this would bring a lot of warm color and whimsy to the house and the neighborhood! The house is placarded with a REAP HRDP sign, which seems to suggest that someone got a small grant to fix up the home . . . I'll look into that.

Tagging this home/porch is a big project, but if we get lots of people working, we can do it--maybe by this spring.

What we need:

• 28 spindle covers, 4"x 27" (or 4" x 12" if you just want to cover the middle round part of the spindles) OK. That sounds like a lot, but I almost finished one in about 45 minutes while chatting with Kelly at Brewed! Easy with a K hook and some cheap worsted yarn. I did a dc, ch 1 mesh, which I've used on all the tags I've done. It's stretchy, works up fast, and looks great from afar!
• 1 medium-sized post cover, 10" x 8'--I can do this one, as I have a 8" tag that will probably stretch to cover it.
• 2 large-sized post covers (for the posts on the end, which have downspouts attached to them), 18" x probably 12' --I'm guessing we might cut up thrifted afghans for these large tags.

I don't yet have measurements for covering the back wall, but that would be done with afghans. Kelly also had an idea that involves a planter!

Let me know what you think about this project. Would you like to make a tag for it? Know anyone else who'd like to join in?

New Tag at TCR!

Gorgeous day for installing this tag. Most people ignored me, but some workmen did notice what was happening. "Looks great!" one said. Another stopped on his way back and asked "how long did that take you?"

After I finished, a smartly-dressed woman stopped on the corner to look at it. "I love those! They look cozy," she said. "I saw some by the coffeeshop--did you put up those, too?"

I look forward to seeing the other tags go up by TCR!

Scouting for October installation

Went downtown to scout out a potential location for a new yarn installation.

We want to tag TCR to honor its support of local playwrights during its Underground Play Festival.

There are several tagging options.

Probably the meter poles are not a good idea
--they may be removed or changed soon to make way for the new solar-powered meters.

This fence looks PERFECT for a project that involves weaving . . . but it also looks like private property, so maybe not.

We Yarntagrz don't usually tag pretty streetscape items like these pretty lamp posts. They don't need any art on them! Let's put our tags on otherwise ugly or neutral items.

However, there are some cool options that might be nice. For example, there are two sign posts that flank the entrance to the theatre.

They have an 8" diameter, so our usual tags would fit nicely! And we can make them as tall as we can reach.

They're certainly ugly-to-neutral; some yarn would help their looks.

This big square post would be a nice place for some granny square tags.

Each side is approx. 5 1/2 inches. Four granny square tags of that size, sewn together, would make a stylish tag for this monster. We could just put one on the post, or make a bunch.

And creating yarn garments for sculptures is a time-honored yarntagging idea. There's a sculpture of two dancers right across the street from the theatre--they are life-size, and maybe they need some hats or scarves?

Let's get our hooks and needles flying! We have a bit less than 2 weeks before opening night. Maybe we could plan to do our tagging on Thurs., Nov.3.

Tag on Bike

OK, it's actually a size 3 thread tag!

Newest Tag at Green Square

It's an interactive yarn tag--someone has moved it from the middle to one end!
Here's the sign--don't know if anyone will see it or not.

Fun to be part of the last downtown Farmer's Market!

Yarntagrz at the Market

If you're at the Farmer's Market this week (September 17) be sure to find our newest yarn tag in Green Square Park. It's on the bike rack, and will be near Sonya Darrow's textile art installation.

New Tags: Time Check neighborhood

We finally got our new tags up in the Time Check neighborhood, right outside the new Groundswell community center (the old Hubbard Ice building).

We'd been putting off the installation because it's been so HOT--and today wasn't great, but it WAS below 90. I think.

Here we are in the coolness of Brewed, finishing up some projects.

Last week, a young woman sitting near us asked to take our picture. She was working for the Obama campaign and was supposed to send them a photo of where she was working. She thought a picture of us would be cool. Well, yeah. Wish I'd asked her to send us a copy!

We went over to Time Check to install our art. I dropped off a flyer at the Groundswell center so they knew what we were doing . . . and off we went!

Go check it out--and stop by at Groundswell for some ice cream!