Flower Vase

Counter Combat Operatives

Ceasefire

Flowers of War

Blossoms Not Bullets

Blossoms Not Bullets is a craftivist’s love letter to humanity in response to weaponised games people play. It’s a plea for peace during wartime. Without a backstory a facade is simply prettiness, yet the vibrant aesthetic subversively resists the dark topic. A deeper dimension plays hide-and-seek embodying yarns that are tellers of us at this stitch in time.

This is an overview of my chapter written for the anthology, “Global Craftivism: Handcraft Responses to Violence, War, Illness and Isolation.”

Games People Play

The stage is set as cyber wars inflame ground warfare and humanity is caught in the crossfire of news bombardments, keyboard warriors, algorithmic missiles, hate speech, and spun yarns detonated faster than a bullet’s velocity. We play war like it’s a game of win or lose. Yet, we all are defeated by it… like pawns on a chess board. Our enlivened fabric is torn as grief bleeds through frayed seams. Mending the rips requires more than a darning needle to suture fresh wounds on intergenerational scars. It requires a yarn balm revolution to untangle our mangled heartstrings

As fallen petals replace drops of blood from the fallen, Mother Nature cries “Shoot blossoms, not bullets!”

Flowers of War

A flower’s resilience persists despite humanity’s rage. Pollination continues across battlefields so that future generations aren’t left bereft of floral beauty because of our polarised ideologies. Imagine flowers placed in the barrel of a rifle creating a vase softened with a crochet cosie. The constructs of craftivism reimagine destructive vessels. A grenade is a craftivist’s yarn bomb, not a deadly detonated bomb. Purple Roses Against Violence implore us to stop conflict-related s*xual violence and femicide used as intentional weapons of war. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court defines this a war crime. Camouflaged amongst crochet flowers, Counter Combat Operatives shoot blossoms, not bullets. Toy soldiers teach weaponised gaming from early childhood… evolving into the games adults play.

Craftivist’s Love Letter

Yarn Bomb as Yarn Balm Grenade

Roses Against Violence

Counter Combat Operatives

Handmade

Threaded Dialogues