By Tania Phillips
Preparations for this year’s Jumpers and Jazz in July are getting “Curiouser and Curiouser” for the yarn bombing group Yarntopians.
Yarntopian Coordinator Loretta Grayson says work is well underway for this year’s display in the Kings Theatre foyer, with the group’s many knitters, crocheters and other artisans of all ages already getting into the swing of the project.
The group has had crafters as young as six or seven up to people in their 90s – it doesn’t matter how old or young they are, they can join the Yarntopians
“And because it’s a team where anyone can subscribe to our newsletter and join in, the numbers of contributors change ever each year,” She said.
“We have around 12-15 local team members from the Warwick area who are the ones who put in months and months of planning and crafting and install everything and get together for planning meetings and working bees.
“Then we have other people like out of town contributors who subscribe to the newsletter and post us their contributions and then we have people who are local and want to knit and crochet in their homes. They send in their contributions.
“Over the years our participants can vary anywhere from about 50 people to a hundred. Last year we had around 60 contributors.”
The Yarntopians have been producing large scale yarn art installations since 2014 producing amazing art work out of yarn with installations including French café’s and mid century rooms. The group now come under the governance of Jumpers and Jazz in July Inc and look forward each year to producing a show-stopping installation.
“We are sort of the official yarnbombing team of Jumpers and Jazz in July,” Loretta laughed.
“There are lots of yarn bombing teams in Warwick who do things for the festival but ours is kind of a sub committee of JJJ. “
She said the installations move from venue to venue each year with a new setting providing new inspiration.
“Last year we had a little shop that had been really kindly donated to us for the duration of the festival,” Loretta said.
“There’s a group called Showcasing Our Atellers who work with JJJ – they’re a group of artist and crafters and they set up their work in Warwick RSL’s Kings Theatre each year,” she said.
“You can go into Kings Theatre and see all of this wonderful art and craft from local and out of town art and crafters.
“That team has invited to set up our installation in the foyer of Kings Theatre. We’re working alongside them this year. The management of the RSL have been really wonderful and said yes we’d love to have the Yarntopians set up in the foyer.”
The historic building was a theatre back in the day and is still used for a lot of functions but for the Yarntopians it offers some fabulous challenges including decorating a staircase this time around – their first.
“We’ll be in the foyer which you get to from Kings Street, that’s we’re will be setting up,” she said.
“Our installations are usually quite large, I can’t tell you the exact size of the foyer but it’s a decent-sized foyer that incorporates a staircase, a landing and a passage way. This is new that we get to incorporate the old staircase from Kings Theatre into our installation.”
There ideas are generated in house coming from having a “very creative” and have varied and interesting over the past decade.
“Sometimes we’ll have an idea for the next year’s installation while we’re still working on this year’s,” she said.
“It’s a lot of fun and a lot of brainstorming happens when we get together, that’s how we come up with our ideas.
“Last year we did a 1920s inspired French Café and that was set up in a gorgeous little vintage shop front in Warwick. It was the perfect little building for a French Café. We did a lifesized Gypsy caravan, we did a retro kitchen one year, a couple of year’s back it was a 1960s-70s loungeroom.
“We’ve done lots of things.”
And while they aren’t giving too much away, Loretta said the needles and crochet hooks had been picked up again, the creative juices had been flowing and the yarn, often donated to the group, is out and being crafted. The group has things stored from their previous projects often repurposing them for the next year.
“We don’t give too much away but as it gets close to the festival we’ll put out more images and little teasers.
“But the name of our installation is Curiouser and Curiouser so it’s an Alice in Wonderland inspired installation. Because we love colour we’re probably going the original Disney type Alice in Wonderland but there will be inspirations from all of the different iterations of Alice. It will be very Yarntopian.”
She said they have team members of all ages and skill levels.
“We benefit from some team members who have many years experience in knitting and crochet and can turn their hands to all sorts of challenging design briefs,” she said.
“We also have crafters who are just beginners with knitting and crochet or people. We also have parts of our installations that can be made by people who aren’t knitters or crocheters so there’s always things to be sewn together. In the past we’ve put out calls for pom poms. One installation required a huge pom pom meadow. That was a great way for people who don’t knit or crochet to contribute.”
The team have been working on Curiouser and Curiouser since last October November with several more months work ahead.
“We are always looking for more people to help and they can email yarntopians@gmail.com or we’ve got a page on the Jumpers and Jazz Website.”
