Yarn Bombing!

I've always found the statue of the girl walking the dog (located in front of Ecole Victoria School on Broadway Avenue in Saskatoon) a tad on the dreary side (no offence to sculptor Bill Epp). This fall I embarked on a month long project to provide a little colour to life of the girl and her dog. I finished everything late last night and got together a dedicated team to help me execute my plan. Here's the before and after pictures!

These are pictures of the items pre-installation.

I knit the dog sweater from this free pattern but the feature insert was taken from a different dog sweater pattern also available for free on the internet.

The sweater pattern is the Adult Surprise Jacket, a variation of Elizabeth Zimmermann's infamous Baby Surprise Jacket. The sweater is knit in such a way that the finishing seams run up both sweater arms making it ideal to sew onto a statue that doesn't have both arms available to slide on a sweater sleeve (the girl is holding the dog's leash in her right hand).  I put the sweater on the statue backwards in order to accommodate the girl's backpack. I used a crochet hook to join the sleeves with a single crochet stitch, making a short chain across the back to connect both sides of the sweater.

The hat was knit from the Slouchy Hat pattern from MelonHead KnitWear. The leg warmers were a simple k1p1 for the ribbing top and bottom, with stockinette stitch in between.

I took this photo of my team doing the installation.

Walk, bike or drive by and enjoy an extra little bit of colour on Broadway!