Bloordale’s historic Pendell Boiler Factory recently played host to Re-Make, the launch party for Toronto’s first laneway housing development, Lanehouse on Bartlett, by Curated Properties.
“[Lanehouse] is a beautiful old factory that was being sold as a tear-down, and Curated Properties decided to save it and transform it,” said event planner Kim Graham of Kim Graham & Associates. “The event [was] about bringing together old and new maker culture in a former yarn factory to remake the space and neighbourhood.”
Playing off the venue’s hard lines and steel beams, Graham used "yarn bombing" to create a sense of pliability throughout the towering space, which echoed the condo developer’s vision of taking something once derelict and interpreting it as a new form of expression. “Yarn bombing,” a trend spotted at other recent events such FX's Fargo promotion, is a guerrilla art installation in which knitters cover street fixtures like fences or lamp posts with crocheted yarn. It's similar to graffiti but not permanent. At the Re-Make event, two whimsical swings hung from the original yarn factory rafters, suspending models dressed in knitted attire to further the event theme of transformation and craftsmanship.
Here's a look inside the yarn-filled event, which took place in late March.