A group of talented knitters, sewers and crochetiers from across Swansea and Mumbles have decorated bollards on Mumbles Pier with amazing yarn sculptures of the Queen, ahead of the Her Majesty's Platinum Jubilee. The impressive designs, known in the creative community as "yarnbombs," were all made-by-hand by members of the Swansea Yarnbombers group - just because they wanted to put a smile on people's faces.
Co-ordinator of the group, semi-retired textile artist and former NHS worker, Tina Wisby, said there were currently around 30 active members in the group, with some others joining for certain projects, and more than 300 supporters on Facebook. The group are a mixture of ages and backgrounds but have one thing in common: they love to make things.
Earlier this year, the group decided to create yarn sculptures of the Queen, a Beefeater, the Queen's crown and a wide range of British-themed items, simply in order to brighten peoples' days and add a bit of colour and decoration to the ageing bollards on Mumbles Pier. They've previously created Christmas-themed yarnbombs and their beautiful flower-themed yarnbombs proved popular last year.
"Yarnbombing" is the activity of covering street furniture including benches, postboxes, lamp posts and bollards with colourful and fun woollen/yarn creations. The activity began to gain widespread attention in the UK last summer when communities across the country began to decorate the top of postboxes with yarn designs of local athletes who had gained success in the Tokyo Olympic Games, or with bright, flowery and summery designs. Prior to that, yarnbombing was a subtle way of making a statement about a cause that mattered to the creator's heart.
"Yarnbombers started off as a graffiti sort of thing, then it became more decorative," Tina said. "It used to be used as a sort of protest or political statement, but now it is more decorative and pleasurable! We're doing this to bring smiles to people's faces!"
Swansea Yarnbombers' impressive creations at Mumbles Pier have taken months to make and were unveiled last Friday, May 27, to great acclaim. Social media has been awash with praise for the yarnbombers - with many local people congratulating the group on doing something to make people feel happier.
"We've done postboxes and now bollards at Mumbles Pier, it really makes us happy and makes others happy when they see them," Tina said. "We've got a mixture of people in the group, some people have disabilities and some are carers so spend a lot of time at home by themselves. Knitting or yarnbombing gives them something to do. We also run a group where people can come and do things together [such as sewing, crocheting or knitting], that's in the community room at Tesco Fforestfach. There's a sense of belonging."
Tina continued: "We have a few members awaiting orthopaedic surgery who said they found the group beneficial as they can't get out and about as much as they like and they enjoy the social aspect of meeting new people, making friends and being involved in something worthwhile. We also have members who are not in Swansea that are involved such as in Skewen, Neath Port Talbot - and one lady drives to the Pier all the way from Cwmgorse near Ammanford as she has moved from England and has enjoyed making new friends!"
In Swansea, yarnbombing first took off a few years ago when some sewers and crochetiers came together from across the city to plan creations for the biennial Festival of Stitch. The event would see sewing fans from across South Wales create elaborate artworks and textiles and exhibit them to the public . The 2018 event was particularly popular, Tina said, and the Swansea Yarnbombers group has grown ever since.
Whilst the 2020 Festival of Stitch was cancelled due to the pandemic, group members continued creating their masterpieces at home individually - with many getting involving in knitting and sewing for charities and causes, including creating woollen clothing for animals in Australia injured in the Australian fires of 2020, as well as creating scrubs, scrub bags, mask extenders and physiotherapy dolls for NHS staff in the UK.
Then, as restrictions began to lift in 2021, the group were able to display further creations along Mumbles Pier in the summer, with Christmas designs following in the December.
"In the summer of 2021, we covered 12 bollards and we did one for each month of the year," Tina said. "We had a flowery one for March, a Pride one and a Christmas one, for example. And then we did more Christmas yarnbombs at Christmas time, we had the Grinch, Father Christmas, it was really popular."
"We thought we'd have a break but with more and more people joining, there's been lots of ideas of things we can do and one lady suggested doing something for the Queen's Jubilee! The bollards are perfect as they're a nice shape, with a sphere at the top which can be the 'head' and then the bottom of the bollard flares out a bit," she added.
If you're interested in joining the group, you can find them on Facebook here. And anyone who'd like to support the group is asked to consider donating to one of their charity fundraisers.
The group is raising funds to help children with Type 1 diabetes who attend the Princess of Wales and Neath Port Talbot Hospitals (you can find the link to the online fundraiser for that here) and for Cardiac Risk in the Young charity, after a member of the group sadly lost her husband to an undiagnosed heart condition. You can donate to that fundraiser, and read more about the cause, here
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