Curiosity killed the yarnstormed cat. It was nothing to do with the fact we covered it in yarn. Oh no.
You have questions? We have some answers.
Answers for everyone • Answers for the press and publicity • Answers for students • Answers for commissions and workshops • Answers for the two questions people keep on asking
Answers for everyone
When is your next yarnstorm?
If we told you we’d have to kill you.
The only way to keep informed is to stalk us on Twitter or Facebook. Social media is your friend. There might also be something on our Next page. But we doubt it.
Can I join you? How do you recruit the Yarn Corps?
Becoming an Yarn Corps agent of the Knit the City Yand gaining access to the secret wool-lined Yarn Corps bunker requires quite frankly scary levels of yarnstorming obsession and undefinable knitting graffiti superpowers.
The trial of woolly fire involves rituals that the existing agents would rather hang themselves on their own chain stitch noose than disclose. If you are Knit the City Yarn Corps material we will find you. You may wish that we hadn’t.
We do, however, encourage fledgling yarnstormers to shove a link to their yarnstorming blog at us. We’ll shine it up real nice and put it in pride of place on the Other Graffiti Knitters page when it’s up.
Why ‘yarnstorming’ and not ‘yarnbombing’?
Knit the City ‘yarnstorm’ rather than ‘yarnbomb’.
Being of a gentler disposition the Yarn Corps feel a bit sheepish about being labelled as dastardly yarn terrorists. We live in a city where ‘bomb’ is possibly not the best word to bandy about, even if it is woolly. We’re not blowing things up. We’re creating a bit of handmade chaos. See how pretty it is. *gazes*
Who makes all your lovely short films?
Alt Artist. They rock.
What are the underlying subversive, feminist and political aims behind your woolly street art?
So many people have asked us this question that the answer now has its own page.
Why are you wasting your yarn on this when you could be knitting to keep homeless people warm, feed hungry children in Africa and save small monkeys from imploding?
If you’re very concerned about this you can read our answer here. You probably won’t like it.
What happens to your yarnstorms after you install them?
Sticky fingered people steal them. We don’t mind. Once a knit is released into the wild it’s free to roam. Every KTC item has a label on it that says “Confess your theft at www.knitthecity.com.”
So far we’ve only had one confession.
Your photos are splendiferous! Can I buy prints of them?
Soon, my friend, soon. Knit the City prints, postcards and exclusive stuff will be on sale at Whodunnknit‘s online shop very soon. Exciting, eh?
Answers for press/publicity
I’m a journalist/filmmaker/publicity hound writing/filming/touting (insert publication/project here). Will you yarnstorm for me?
We try to avoid being the dancing monkeys of knitting graffiti unless there’s a very good reason for it.
We’re very happy to do telephone interviews, answer emails or even meet you in real life if we have time. We’ll also let you use photos of our previous yarnstorms to go along with our words. We have some very good ones.
We’re unlikely to knit just because you ask us to though. Unless you can think of an astoundingly good reason.
A yarnstorm takes weeks to prepare and plan. Those stitches don’t knit themselves, you know. So we can’t just yarnstorm on demand and, to be honest, it wouldn’t be the same if we did. We also need to continue our day jobs to maintain our sneaky stitching cover. We’re busy bunnies in real life.
If you want to come along on a yarnstorm with your notepad and camera then you’ll have to contact us to ask if one is planned soon and then ask if you can come along. Sometimes we might say yes. Sometimes we might like a little privacy.
We have pointy sticks if you become insistent.
Your photos are fabulous! Can I use them for my article/advert/website/t-shirt/wedding invitation/facial tattoo in your honour?
We get a whole lot of requests from all kinds of people to use our images in all sorts of places (the Phonebox image is particularly popular). Please contact us if you wish to use any of our images.
All images from Knit the City are taken by Deadly Knitshade and the copyright is owned by her. If you want to use our images for articles written about Knit the City and graffiti knitting in general please ask. You’ll need to say exactly what it’s for. Other uses of Knit the City images are considered on a case by case basis. If we agree for the images to be used we’ll send along rates and an image permission contract. Please contact us with details of where you want to use the images and we’ll see what we can do.
Any images used either hi-res or low-res must be credited with a copyright and, if it’s online, with a link. That’s our handmade hardwork there, so while we appreciate the love it’s not worth much if no one knows it’s our work. Please ask before using them.
We never send out hi-res versions of images without our image permission form being returned first. We really don’t. No really. Not even if you ask really nicely.
Answers for students
I’m a student studying (insert degree here). Can I bombard you with probing yet insightful questions for my dissertation?
We don’t mind helping out students but we’re busy yarnstorming bees. So if you want us to lavish some of our spare time on helping you win the favour of academia then there are a few things that might help:
- Do your research. Addressing us as ‘Dear Sirs’ probably isn’t the best start.
- Be polite about it. When you first contact us, please don’t send us your eight million questions right away. Ask us if we have time to fit you in. If we do we’re happy to help. If we don’t it’ll save all that typing.
- Learn real live journalism by taking notes. After answering many, many, many questions by email we’ve got finger cramps. So we’re hanging up the keyboard but we’re happy to send you a phone number for a telephone interview instead. You can even send us the questions in advance if you like. Less typing for us, more note scribbling for you. You’ll feel just like Clark Kent.
Answers for commissions and workshops
Do you do commission work? We’d very much like you to yarnstorm our office/event/city/space station/President.
If you’d like Knit the City to come and make some woolly mischief for you we do consider commission work. In the past we have worked with Nintendo, ITV, John Smedley and Prince Charles’ Campaign for Wool. We can pretty much yarnstorm anything at all from fabricated computer worlds, to chat shows, to 200 years of history to Brian Blessed’s beard.
Drop us an email telling us what you’d like us to yarnstorm and if we like what you have to say we might just say yes. We’ll also send along a quote as this totally depend on what you want us to conjure up. We guarantee it’ll be bloody marvellous though. And woolly.
Do you run graffiti knitting workshops?
Hell yes we do! We’ve run graffiti workshops at London’s Natural History Museum, Tate Britain and for the Camden Crawl. Tell us what you’d like and we’ll see what we can fit in.
Will you do a commission/workshops for free/wool/cake/the good of all mankind?
Not likely. Unless there’s some kind of immortality involved. Or monkeys. Can we all get monkeys?
Will you take part in our event/publicise our cause/help us save the planet?
Must we? It’s graffiti. I wonder if Banksy has this trouble.
Answers for the two questions people keep on asking
Can I go on a date with Plarchie the Giant Knitted Squid? He’s awfully dreamy.
Plarchie will eat you if you do. Is that really how you want to go? If yes please seek help.
Will you knit another Phonebox Cosy?
No. No we won’t.
Oh. Go on.
*stony silence*
Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease.
*releases knitted hounds*
Still curious? Email us.
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