Weaving the Web of Woe

It was a thing of spider-devoured horror. It was 13 foot long and four foot wide. It saw the entrapment of 44 horrified handmade creatures. It was the Web of Woe, and this is how it all happened…

Like all good Knit the City Yarnstorms the idea for the Web of Woe was hatched after too much pear cider one Knit the City night in the secret Yarn Corps wool-lined bunker. Plans were drawn, more cider was drunk, the space was measured, visions of half-eaten bugs began to crawl and scuttle through our minds.

We marched, with a terrible yarn-wrapped purpose, to the Leake Street tunnel, where graffiti is legal and the likes of Banksy once sprayed his territory. (We hope he washed his hands after.)

The Yarn Corps go underground

It began with a blank canvas and the woolly idea floating invisibly in it.

Just asking for a yarnstorm

We sneakily stuck our hooks in all the right places 48 hours before the yarnstorm. We’re nothing if not damned thorough when it comes to setting up a storm. The chaos comes later.

The beauty that was No Nails tape

A well-slung hook

Off to the Secret Yarn Corps Bunker for our old favourites: a huge newspaper template and mutterings of “Oh good god that template is gargantuan!” and “Are you sure it’s 13 foot long?” and “Yes. Shut up. We’ve measured it twice now”.

A naked web

Then, one of the best bits of any yarnstorm, the “Fellow Yarn Corps members, look what I made!”, the bringing together of the bits.

Here be handcrafted beasts

We introduced the beasts to the web. The spider looked about hungrily. The beasts looked on in horror. They were beginning to twig that something was very wrong.

A map of about-to-be-munched

The day arrived. The final touches were made over the only breakfast a self respecting graffiti knitter can start a yarnstorming day on. Between bites the beasts were carefully entangled in yarn as every spider-trapped animal should be.

The hand-crafted creatures that weren’t worried before were now very worried indeed.

An exceptionally sweary butterfly laments over eggs

The yarnstorm officially began.

Webbing

Eight-legged and hungry

Tagging the tag

The Yarn Corps looked back at the knit and crochet carnage we had created. We saw the horror in the eyes of our stitched sacrifices. We saw that it was good. We ignored the whimpers and whines of the be-webbed beasts. We sauntered out of the tunnel and into the sunshine. Another yarnstorm weathered.

The Yarn Corps: see no evil, stitch no evil

You can see the Web of Woe in all its glory in our Yarnstorm the Fourth: Web of Woe post.

The Web of Woe has it’s own story of woe. We returned hours later to check up on it and stumbled across two graffiti thieves making off with our spider and several of the beasts. We confronted the tea leaves, rather outraged. Words were exchanged. Reluctantly the web’s stolen inhabitants were handed back.

We put returned them safely back on the web where they belonged, said our final farewells and walked away for good.

Not 24 hours later the entire Web of Woe had gone walkies. We know not where.

Could be it was eaten by the great Hungry Spraycan Beast of the Leake Street tunnel. Could be its inhabitants rebelled against the spider and escaped. Could be it is wandering the suburbs of London looking for more woolly victims to feed it.

We will never know.

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