Rules are made to be broken.

Back in the day, when I was doing a lot of yarn bombing, I had two rules:  No Trees and Nothing Politics.  Well, needless to say, given the political strife of late, I’ve relaxed one of those rules.

Last week’s bike rack cozy was my first political yarn bomb.  It went on the bike rack just outside my local watering hole.  This is the same pub that hosts my weekly knitting group.  I’ve yarn bombed this particular corner quite a few times.  Both of these lasted more than a year:

So imagine my surprise when my hot pink political statement was gone in 4 days!

I wasn’t particularly happy with the lettering.  It’s duplicate stitch turned on it’s side.  It was weird.  It stretched funny.  I don’t mind that it’s no longer on display.

I’m not even that mad it got taken down so quickly.  Knowing I pushed someone’s button enough to see it and then return later with scissors to cut it off, I enjoy that bit.  Especially because I already had another yarn bomb ready to go.

I tried a lot of different methods for the lettering.  Ultimately I decided on this free hand, skewed back stitch.  I didn’t follow a chart so it went fast.  I just kinda winged it, making sure all my lines had a slant to them.  I did this to keep the letters from falling into the ditch between stitches.  They would get completely lost so this was an attempt to fix that.

Not only did I fix the problem, I improved the situation, if I do say so myself. I really like it.  It’s accidentally punk!  It’s got a bit of edge.  It’s not just cutesy and soft.  It’s an homage to the graffiti ancestors that inspired it.

So, Random Neighborhood Trump Lover, thanks for cleaning up my trash!  This second one is even better!  Now, lets see how long it lasts.

I have a feeling the third one (let’s face it, there IS going to be a third one.) will be even better because, nevertheless, I persist.

---