Wrapped Up : Yarnbombing at Morris Arboretum
Knitting nature a sweater
Broad Street Review
By Pam Forsythe
Published 03/29/2016

Yarnbombing is not what it sounds like: angry knitters hurling skeins of wool and furious crocheters flinging tangles of yarn with daggerlike needles.

Artist Melissa Maddonni Haims uses strategically placed safety pins to wrap the edges of roofs. (All photos by Pamela J. Forsythe)

Forget all that and head for Morris Arboretum, where fiber artist Melissa Maddonni Haims has adorned trees with comfy sweaters, peaked roofs with patchwork shawls, and bridge spindles with bright knee socks, as if to ward off the spring chill. She hasn’t yarnbombed the place as much as she’s yarnswaddled it.

The installation, which covers 10 structures, comprises 25,000 yards of yarn hand-knitted and crocheted over the course of10 months. Maddonni Haims commissioned Andrew Dahlgren to machine-knit an additional 21,000 yards of yarn, the first time she’s used machine-fabricated work. Working on her own and with periodic help from volunteers, installation extended over 10 days.

Wrapped Up will be on view through October (or “until it succumbs to the elements,” the arboretum specifies).