Knit Graffiti: 12 Examples of Inoffensive Guerrilla Art

We love Knitted Landscape, a collaborative site that encourages people to upload photos of their own creative projects. The community is about "knitting, art, inspiration, landscape, beauty, humor, nature, photography, imagination, make people smile."

We adore the images of handmade mushrooms and other natural designs, placed in provocative spaces. It gets us thinking about humankind's tremendous impact on the planet, our relationship to the natural world, and our perspectives on it through art, creativity and the senses. And they're cute!

How funny would it be to play a trick on a fellow gardener with one of these? If you've got an organic garden like us, then you may want to keep it green and use organic yarn for the project!

This delicate knit flower makes a thought-provoking contrast against a stark commercial landscape. The work was installed in 2007 at the Van Nelle Factory during the Rotterdam Stich'nBitch Event. It's a good example of how some fabric and a touch of color and creativity can help brighten up our world.

A gray day at Diamond Hill in Ireland's Connemara National Park is lit up by this whimsical pile of knit cairns. Such arrangements of stones have long been used to convey mindfulness and purpose, as well as a welcome to travelers.

A thought-provoking project of the International Fiber Collaborative, dubbed World Reclamation Art Project (W.R.A.P.), brought together the work of professional artists, hobbyist crafters and students, all with the goal of highlighting society's harmful dependence on oil. Participants crocheted, knitted, stitched, patched or collaged 3-foot-square fiber panels, with each unique one expressing concern about the topic.

The panels were then sewed together, to completely cover an abandoned gas station in central New York. This project is an example of people remaking an ugly industrial legacy into something softer, gentler and more beautiful.

Entitled "tree cozy," this crocheted masterpiece by Carol Hummel took 500 hours to complete. The colorful installation stood for nearly three years outside Cleveland Heights City Hall.

Protest art has taken many forms over the years — and sometimes requires people to take up their needles. In a recent project in Denmark, artists covered a tank by knitting and crocheting, turning a menacing machine into a pink plaything. A video about the making of the project — which protests Western involvement in the Iraq War — is available from the Nikolaj, Copenhagen, Contemporary Art Center.

Some of the true pioneers of the knit graffiti movement are Houston-based KnittaPlease, a group bringing color and expression to urban landscapes in a nondestructive form. Knitta "tags" have been seen around the world and have inspired a number of other artists. What do you think of the idea?

This old junker got a cheery spruce-up, thanks to KnittaPlease.

Stockholm's historic sculpture of Karl XIII gets a dapper update in the form of a knit tie and peace sign, courtesy of Maskerade.

In Territorial Knittings, Lauren Marsden covered the signs of every street on which she has lived in Victoria, British Columbia (without permission from the city). Luckily, she knit replicas of the signs, so the goal wasn't confused motorists. She definitely made her mark!