Knit the City maintains a sense of humour about their group's
beginnings and tells a different story each time they are interviewed. The
genuine story is that the collective was founded by Deadly Knitshade, later
revealed to be author and Stitch London founder Lauren O'Farrell, who
anonymously invited five hand-picked members to join forces in February 2009 on
a mission to "turn the city knitwise". The collective was partly
inspired by O'Farrell's 2007 London Lion Scarf charity event, when her Stitch
London craft community created giant scarves for London's Trafalgar Square
Lions to raise money for Cancer Research UK, and partly by a 2009 event in
which Magda Sayeg of Knitta Please, Stitch London, and Guardian journalist
Perri Lewis collaborated in graffiti knitting London's South Bank.
The members of the group use superhero-style names to hide
their real identities. Initial Yarn Corps members were Deadly Knitshade,
Knitting Ninja, Lady Loop, Shorn-a the Dead, Bluestocking Stitching and The
Purple Purl, with the addition of The Fastener in October 2009. In creating the
group's identity, Knitshade also coined the term 'yarnstorming' as a less
violent alternative to the US term yarnbombing. The term has now been adopted
by many groups, and was first used in the media on BBC News in June 2009.
Deadly Knitshade is widely credited with innovating the
concept of telling 'stitched stories' in graffiti knitting and crochet, using
amigurumi knitted and crocheted characters, creatures and objects. The earliest
recorded example of this is Knit the City's "Web of Woe" installation
in August 2009, which was installed in London's Leake Street. The concept has
since been adopted by groups worldwide and made national news.
