Yarnbombing And Sugar

I often dream I am at a bakery and I am having every different chocolate cake , scone , cream cake , strawberry short cake , custard pie , chocolate truffle and lemon cream pie that they have in their glass case . On Sunday I met The Russian at Sweet Adelaine ‘ s  Bakery in Berkeley and that bakery is like my dream. The counter top and glass case is crammed with cookies , scones ,  fruit buckle cake , blondies , chocolate pave ,  everything I dream about . Unbelievably -I had a chicken curry sandwich , a piece of quiche and just one chocolate chip cookie . I knew I had hours and hours of yarnbombing to do and I didn’t want to get delirious.

I really liked that bakery and there was a good 3 loop bike rack outside . I considered ditching my plan to yarnbomb The Lakeshore library and  spend the day eating cookies and yarnbombing Sweet Adelaine’ s  instead but The Russian sweetly reminded me that I care  deeply about yarnbombing all the libraries of Oakland . So I went my way .

People often ask me about my assistant The Russian . Well she is going off to art school in San Francisco today and I am very proud .  And jealous.

So I drove over to Lakeshore which is very pretty and confusing to drive around . I drove around and around and finally parked my car . I yarnbombed The Lakeshore Library – I’ll tell you about that later – and then I went over to the big Gazebo by Lake Merritt and contemplated 3 lovely little bike racks .  ” They aren’t really a library ” I rationalized  ” But they are very near one and they would look exceptionally nice yarnbombed . ” So I yarnbombed them .

5 bike racks is a lot of sewing so I tried hard to stay relaxed .I’m always nervous at first , sewing and watching police cars drive by and wondering how the police are feeling today in Oakland . Eventually the sun and the shining like soothed me and I began to enjoy the beautiful and totally absurd act of yarnbombing.

The colors are very sugary on this installation . This made it very appealing to small children . A very little girl came and swung on a loop while I sewed . She came very close to me and fingered my pink sewing yarn . Then she wrapped my strip of knitting around her hand in a businesslike sort of way and tried to walk off with it . Sadly , I had to take it away . Later an older woman with a plastic badge around her neck came to watch me and she couldn’t stop giggling at what I was doing . She said she was from Hong Kong and she told me many things in Chinese . She wanted to help me so she held my knitting as I sewed. She held it very tight and crooked so it was only slightly helpful .

More people came by marching for peace . They have been marching for many years and may never get done . They knew all about my yarnbombing on College Ave . A woman and her photographer showed up next and said ” Can we photograph out shoes on your yarnbomb ?”

‘Ok ” I said in confusion . The woman sat down on a bike loop and promptly started to fall off as the knitting spun around . I devotedly hoped if she fell off that she wouldn’t sue me .

I sewed and sewed and worked on a little meditation exercise . Doing . Not doing . Feeling the Not Doing in my body .

At this point I realized that I had no idea where I had parked my car.

When this piece was all done it really looked like something . I couldn’t stop taking pictures . Sometimes yarnbombing looks like another world coming through this one . 2 woman stopped big smiles .” ‘This is your best one ever ” they said .

“I’ll quote you ” I said.

Then I went off to try and find my car .

August 29, 2011 by streetcolor Categories: UncategorizedTags: Art and meditation, Art in Oakland, Cookies and knitting, Dreams of Cake, Knitted bike racks at Lakeshore, sugar, yarnbombing at Lake Merritt 11 Comments