This morning we installed our Pride celebration yarn bombing on a downtown path near Pack Square Park (by Pack Tavern). Earlier this year I plotted with folks at BlueRidge Pride regarding a yarn bombing installation inspired by Pride flags for the Blue Ridge Pride Festival. We settled on a path of 6 trees and 9 lampposts in an area that wouldn’t be filled with booths at the Pride festival (which takes place this Saturday).
This year’s festival theme is “Resistance and Resilience.” A little MORE than a year ago we were filling all our buckets with water. And now our buckets are definitely in need of all the powers of resistance and resilience we can muster. I really like that we ended up with so many yarn bombing pieces in the form of crocheted granny squares. As I pieced together the granny squares made up of different Pride flag colorways I liked the idea of thinking about “Gay Grannies” and “Lesbian Grannies” and “Trans Grannies” and “Non-binary Grannies”…all these grannies and elders in our past who lived under the radar — or very much NOT under the radar. Cause being gay or lesbian or trans or nonbinary is not new. Our queer family has been here all along. And I really like to think of Trans Grannies and Nonbinary grannies and all the queer grannies in the future. Because WE WILL find a way to overcome this hatred and fear-mongering culture. We will protect one another. We will do what we need to do to RESIST and to build and support RESILIENCE. One stitch at a time. One connection at a time.
Thanks yarny fam for crafting all these beautiful things and to those who came out to help stitch them together for the community to enjoy. The yarn bombing will be up for one week (until next Monday, Sept. 28) so go check it out while it’s up! After washing and mending, we hope to transform the yarn bombing pieces into Pride Flag blankets that we’ll be gifting to BlueRidge Pride for their community space.

















