Phantom knitter strikes station
Someone dressed the baby, but nobody knows who.
Paraparaumu police were bombed in a rather quaint way recently when a ‘yarn bomber’ targeted their outdoor sculpture of a baby cupped in a large hand.
Seeing the baby was in need of a knitted blanket and a beanie in the cold weather, they created it a brightly coloured gift.
Neither police nor sculpture creator Bodhi Vincent know who the phantom knitter is.
‘‘We will probably leave it clothed for a little while.’’
Police said they were amused the yarn bomber struck their sculpture.
Duty sergeant Stu Lawrie has inspected the knitting and said he thought it was a nice touch.
He was not sure how long the baby would remain blanketed, and would wait until new station senior sergeant Dean Silvester returned from training to decide ‘‘how best to dress the baby’’.
‘‘I think out of respect to Bodhi Vincent, we will probably leave it clothed for a little while and then put it back to its original form,’’ he said.
The Raumati-based Vincent said he had not seen the sculpture since it was dressed, but liked the idea.
‘‘It sounds quite cute ... It’s quite good when you’ve got someone adding another layer to something. Maybe they’ll knit me an ensemble I could wear!’’
The Kapiti Voices Against Violence Group applied for funding from the Ministry of Social Development’s It’s Not OK campaign and commissioned Vincent to create the sculpture in 2010.