Now you and granny can wrap trees with colorful art

Crocheting is neither dead nor exclusively for grandmothers.

The Cebu Crochet Group’s volunteers, most of whom are young, have wrapped some trees in Banilad, Cebu City with a colorful patchwork of crocheted doilies.

They were commissioned to “yarn-bomb” the trees during Cebu Design Week last June and have also done something similar as part of a marketing tactic at The Outlets in Pueblo Verde in Lapu-Lapu City.

Their message? “Art should not be intimidating,” said Rose Buenconsejo, one of the participants.

The Cebu Crochet Group (CCG) has initiated a “yarn bombing” on the trees in front of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) in Banilad, Cebu City.

Yarn bombing is like street graffiti, but its artists use yarn and crochet installations in public spaces. Rose Buenconsejo, one of the CCG administrators, said that yarn bombing was a way for them to say that crocheting is not dead.

“This grandmotherly thing is not dead. Art should not be intimidating, and it’s not exclusive to extremely talented individuals because even grandmothers can do it,” Buenconsejo said.

The CCG was given a limited time to “yarn-bomb” the ECCP trees.

Buenconsejo said she was grateful that there are lots of crocheters and members of CCG who volunteered and donated time and resources to crochet circles and doilies to deck up the trees in the area.

“The original plan was to deck only one tree, the biggest one, but we got a lot of crocheted pieces so that we were able to include all the trees in front of the ECCP,” she said.

Cebu Crochet started this year and one of their plans was to deck the trees.

Buenconsejo said their wish came true when they were invited by Danielle de Los Reyes and Geofel Flores, from the marketing team of Aboitiz Land, to do a yarn bomb for the Art in the Fork event of The Outlets in Pueblo Verde, Lapu-Lapu City.

It was their first yarn bombing.

The yarn crochet installation in Banilad was their second.

CCG was invited to yarn bomb the trees in ECCP in collaboration with Cebu Design Week organizers, as part of the Cebu Business Month last June.