Who knew a secret society of knitters and crocheters actually existed!

Well, maybe not too secret.  A few days ago, my husband and I spent the day in Rome, Georgia.  I’d never been there before and was looking forward to checking it out. There’s a bridge with 1000’s of love locks, a fantastic historical grave yard where a former first lady is buried, and a cute historic downtown.  When we first arrived to the downtown area I got so excited because I had finally found my first, real live yarn bombing!  The town has two bicycle sculptures, one at each end of the historic district.  Both had beautiful crocheted “spokes”.  And some of the lamp posts were covered with bright stitches.  I loved seeing it.  I used to think yarn bombing was a waste of good yarn and stitches, but seeing it has changed my mind.  It was beautiful.

I asked a woman in town who was responsible for the artwork but she didn’t know. She said it gets changed out a few times a year and commented how nice it was to see the different colors.  I then reached out to another person.  I won’t say who or how because I don’t want to get anyone in trouble for revealing secrets. What this person told me really caught me off guard.  She said the yarn art was created by a secret knit and crochet society called the Knitterati.  I honestly didn’t know if this individual was serious or messing with me.  Was this group the fiber version of the Illuminati made popular by Dan Brown’s novel, Angels & Demons? Was this woman nuts? So I asked if she was able to give me a little more information about this secret society.  Turns out the woman wasn’t nuts.  She was super nice and explained the group does a lot of charity work throughout the year in addition to their colorful installations to the downtown area, that they always get permission to do the installations and that there is a group in Atlanta also known as the Knitterati.   And, well, it turns out they aren’t too secret after all considering they have Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RomeKnitterati/ 🙂

I really loved seeing how the knit and crochet artwork made such a difference to the look of this small town.  And I wish it wasn’t a two hour drive each way.  I would love to participate, that is, IF I could learn their secret handshake. Just kidding.  I don’t know if they have a secret handshake.  But maybe they have secret stitches. 🙂

Anyone in the north Georgia/Dahlonega area want to start a secret knit and crochet society?  My youngest already came up with our name, IllumiKNITti.

Happy (secret) Crocheting!
Darleen