Knitting might conjure up images of sweet little grandmas in rocking chairs clicking needles and transforming yarn into baby booties or scratchy sweaters. But in recent years, the craft has become the basis of an urban street art known as yarn bombing.

The art form hit Kalispell this week as Somers knitter Jodie Coston, with support from Camas Creek Yarn, spearheaded a yarn bombing project at the Hockaday Museum of Art.

After knitting all winter, Coston was ready to “bomb” the museum this week, wrapping trees, signs and more in bright bits of fabric. The project began with mostly blue and white wool yarn but grew to incorporate everything from acrylic to silk in every color of the rainbow.

Machine-knit materials were incorporated as well, with the addition of deconstructed sweaters cut into squares.

Yarn bombing — also called yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, urban knitting and graffiti knitting — might not be your grandma’s knitting, but it was Coston’s grandmother who started her love affair with yarn. Her grandmother taught her how to crochet when Coston was just a child, but the craft didn’t interest the little girl.

After both her grandmothers died a few years ago, Coston decided to pick up her yarn again. This time she was determined to learn to knit, which both grandmas had done all their lives.

Coston twice tried to take a knitting class offered through Flathead Valley Community College’s continuing education program, but the class was canceled both times.

“I was the only one who signed up,” Coston said.

Eventually, she took matters into her own hands.

“I finally got on YouTube and learned from videos,” she said. “Then they had a beginner class at Camas Creek Yarn. I took that, and I’ve been a knitting fiend ever since I learned. I knit every day.”

Last year, Coston organized a group knitting session as part of World Wide Knit in Public Day. She encouraged knitters to bring their yarn and needles to the Hockaday and spend a couple of hours knitting.

While she was setting up the session, Coston chatted with museum Executive Director Elizabeth Moss, who was interested in yarn bombing.

“She’d been somewhere and seen it, and I’d just gotten a book about it,” Coston recalled. “She said, ‘I’d love to have somebody just take it and run with it and do it at the Hockaday.’”

Coston did just that. She started knitting pieces over the winter and enlisted help from people in her knitting group. She also scavenged thrift stores for hand-knitted items.

After months of work, Coston has enough material to cover trees, signs, light posts and hand railings in front of the museum. She has been out in rain and sunshine this week, wrapping objects in brightly colored pieces and attracting the attention of passersby.

“People walking by have just been fascinated by it,” she said.

She added that she has been encouraged by the public’s reaction to the project.

“I’m hoping to maybe do a little more yarn bombing around town,” Coston said. “Maybe it will become a thing.”

The yarn bombing exhibit will be on display outside the Hockaday, 302 Second Ave. E., until Sept. 8. For more information, visit www.hockadaymuseum.org or call 755-5268.