Yarn Bombing The World!

Two siblings are transforming Earth into a vibrant, woolly planet, one yarnbombing project at a time!

Sisters Lorna and Jill Watt have been quietly taking the world by storm, using their skills to create outlandish yarn installations and bringing a splash of colour to businesses and streets. Despite this, their crafty awakenings happened independently. “My friend knitted a toy and I thought, ‘That’s cute, I can do that!’” Jill recalls. So Jill got herself some needles and a stitch holder, then bought a pattern online. “It only had knit, purl, and make one,” she says. “Every row I’d say, ‘Oh I forgot how to knit.’ And then the next row, ‘Oh I forgot how to purl.’ I had to re-teach myself how to do it every row for the whole damn thing!” For Lorna, Jill’s sister, it was crochet that came first, a skill they both learnt as children, then set aside. After dabbling with it in high school (“I started a baby blanket but didn't finish it”), Lorna’s love of crochet took hold while at grad school in Michigan. “It was cold, there were cute yarn shops, and I would stress out. Crochet was the perfect balance of creative and cognitive, mindless and challenging, plus the cosy yarn is comforting. When I didn’t remember how to do things, I just searched YouTube clips for the crucial bits.” Each sister brought the other up to speed on their alternate crafts, “and pretty soon we had a heap of ideas we both wanted to try.”

DISCOVERING YARNBOMBING 

Around ten years ago, the siblings noticed yarnbombing appearing online. “It inspired us to put our designs out in public where not only our online customers could see them, but also our community, including non-crafters,” says Jill.