Unfortunately, few of us actually knew how to knit, so we had
to learn and skill up pretty quick, with the help of some more experienced
knitters (who we refer to as Yodas, except they are not small, green and
wrinkly, but they are very wise). The desire to make something cool drives
the desire to learn how, and we all spur each other on with our
imaginative creations. And we’re not just women of a certain age; the
group contains men, women and children aged 7 to 89.
Later in 2012, we yarnbombed our first target; the Henry
Fawcett statue in the Market Square. It was a steep learning curve and
we made loads of mistakes, but it gave us a massive buzz, and it made a
big splash and was covered by all the local media. The name Salisbury
Ninja Knitters started to be recognised.
Galvanised by our modest success, we planned our next ‘hit’, an
abandoned building in Castle Street. Thirty-two people from four counties
took a year to make a 9ft summer meadow, which we sewed onto the
railings outside the building in the middle of the night. It looked fantastic
and got masses of great feedback and media coverage, but we’d made a
fatal error; we’d yarnbombed an ‘abandoned building’ that was actually
private property and the “meadow” was taken down almost immediately
by the owner’s agents.