Merseyside village transformed into woolen wonderland
Visitors to Formby this weekend will find the village transformed with more than 150 colourful knitted and crocheted items decorating everything from bollards to post boxes to trees. The 40 tableaux include snowmen and penguins outside Iceland, 20 bollards leading to Waitrose topped with woollen versions of goods on sale and 11 knitted ladies taking part in a yoga class outside Formby Pool’s studio.
Other exhibits include a reclining mermaid outside Formby Pool, three generations of a scarecrow family, a clanger and the soup dragon and a four-foot tall watchtower.
A small team of volunteers from the community interest company Imagine Formby have knitted and crocheted the items for International Yarn Bombing Day. Imagine Formby Co-ordinator Leanne Jones explained: “This is the second year we’ve brought International Yarn Bombing Day to Formby. Our intention is to have some fun, to brighten up Formby Village and help remind people what a fantastic place it is to come and enjoy.
“Last year we had three or four volunteers who knitted and crocheted about 40 items. That was spectacular enough and caught people’s imaginations. This year we’ll have around 150 items made by a core group of six or seven of us who meet every month, with our efforts topped up with donations from other volunteers. “We’ll be up at dawn on Saturday to make sure that the Village is fully decorated by the time the shops and cafes are open. We can’t wait and hope people will come and visit and enjoy what we have spent the last year creating, while seeing what Formby has to offer.”
“This year we even have an international element, as a woman from upstate New York, called Doris Formby, saw last year’s fun on Facebook and wanted to get involved."
Yarn bombing is the practice of adding knitted works of art to public places to try and take knitting from something that was viewed as merely for creating clothes and hats to something that could add meaning and colour to urban locations. International Yarn Bombing Day was first celebrated in 2011.