UPPER WEST SIDE — A local school got hit with a "yarn bomb" just in time for the return of students.
Outside the entrance of P.S. 87 on West 78th Street, six trees are partially blanketed in colorful yarn cozies, forming a public art installation made by a local mom.
Yarn bombing is a popular creative activity that has been spotted not only in New York City, but across the world.
"We were trying to make things cheerier at the school...those trees just seemed to be calling out for it," said creator and local resident Jordana Jacobs, who has a fourth-grader at P.S. 87 and an eighth-grader who graduated from the elementary school.
Jacobs is also something of a yarn expert, having co-owned neighborhood knitting store The Yarn Company on Broadway at West 82nd Street for 14 years before selling it in 2011. She's also the co-author of more than a half-dozen knitting books in "The Yarn Girls" series.
Last April, Jacobs decided she should do something to spruce up the school.
So, she got knitting.
Yarn importer Stacy Charles donated 100 balls of 100 percent cotton yarn, worth $850, to the project, Jacobs said.
Jacobs knit the cozies throughout the spring while sitting in the backyard with her daughter or waiting for her soccer practice to end.
"It was kind of a free-for-all," she said of the patterns and colors she chose.
In early September, Jacobs and a few other moms from the PTA used ladders and hooks to hang the completed yarn sleeves to the trees. The PTA also plans to install a plaque explaining the project, she said.
The installation has no end date, but "we’ll see how it’s doing as winter comes," Jacobs noted.
For the past seven years she has also taught weekly knitting classes at P.S. 87, where the students make everything from fingerless gloves to scarves and hats.
"They make hats that they wear all winter," Jacobs said. "They’re really proud of the things they make."
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