Imagine walking into a colorfully immersive environment made entirely of fiber, exploding with vibrancy and texture. As you walk from room to room, new adventures await you in art installations you can’t help but sink your hands, and mind, into.
The Craft Yarn Council is excited to announce a new partnership with Dallas’ premiere experiential art exhibit, Sweet Tooth Hotel, to bring an immersive fiber experience to audiences across the country. The new installation, titled “Intangible,” opened June 2020.
“Intangible” showcases an all-female lineup of some of the top fiber artists from around the United States, including yarn-bomb extraordinaire London Kaye (Los Angeles, CA), Fiber Artist Niki Dionne (Dallas, TX), Muralist and Illustrator Alli Koch (Dallas, TX), Fiber Artist Jackie Lawrence (Denton, TX), Installation Fiber Artist and Yarn Bomber Hannah Busekrus (Austin, TX), Crochet Designer Twinkie Chan (San Francisco, CA), Textile Designer Molly Sydnor (Dallas, TX), Dallas Yarn Bomber Co-Founder Sally Ackerman (Dallas, TX), Knit Artist Joanna Lin (Dallas, TX) and Embroidery Artist Kara Herman (Denton, TX). Each artist has been given a dedicated space to create their own whimsical world completely made from fiber and are the first cohort for CYC AIR (Craft Yarn Council Artist-In-Residence program).
Since each of the artists used large quantities of yarn for their installs, we wanted to do a special series of Happy Place blog posts to dive into how each of them stored and organized their yarn. Read on for our CYC AIR Happy Place with Alli K, aka @allikdesign! Alli is an illustrator known for her beautiful monochrome murals. She is the only non-fiber artist in the Intangible installation, but took on the challenge to combine her well-known floral artistic style with fiber and mixed media!
How many skeins of yarn did you receive for your Sweet Tooth Hotel installation?
Two large boxes full! Maybe 70?
What brand and fiber content did you use in your installation?
Red Heart and Yarnspirations.
What colors did you use for your installation?
Black and grey.
What system did you use to organize your CYC AIR yarn for Sweet Tooth Hotel?
I did it by color and texture!
What furniture or storage systems did you use to organize the yarn you received?
The boxes they came in.
Do you or have you ever found it difficult to manage or organize your yarn?
They take up a lot more space than you think! Once it was out of the package, it had to be hidden to keep it away from my cats.
Knowing the amount of yarn you were going to receive, how did you find an organization system that worked for you?
Luckily I have a second bedroom/office that I use for storage, so it stayed in there.
How do you like to de-stash?
Love this term - I haven't yet since this is my first time using yarn, but I was definitely curious as to what other fiber artists typically do!
Do you work in the same space where your yarn is stored? Why or why not?
No. I like to have a clean, open space to work, so I have two office rooms. One is storage and one is workable with open space and tables.
How important is a well-organized yarn corner/office to your mental wellbeing?
Anything well organized is super important. The first thing I do every morning is clean/clear off my workspace.
Where did you purchase everything shown in the photos you submitted?
I have organization systems from Ikea and the Container Store.
Share any tips or advice you have for someone who is trying to reorganize their stash.
For me, if I can see it I won't/don't use it, so keeping things easy to find and grab is important!
Sweet Tooth Hotel installation images courtesy of TA Visuals. All other images courtesy of Alli K.