SANDPOINT — A group of knitters just wanted to add a splash of color to brighten the grey days of winter.

Unfortunately, the art display was taken down by an unknown individual or group at some point during the day on Tuesday, less than 24 hours after it was installed.

The “yarn bombing” art display, its removal and its meaning drew heavy comment on social media posts with many condemning the removal of the yarn ribbons and others, while saying the removal was wrong, questioned if the display had a political meaning.

“It definitely comes off as political,” said TJ Keefe in a thread on a Facebook post about the incident. “I think most people know this … probably including you. Many people have no problem accepting others, but don’t feel as though they would like to be preached to. A make America great knit job would disappear too … that’s the decisive country we live in. Everyone wants to virtue signal or flat out state they have superior view points.”

Group members said the art project was simply that — a chance to put up a temporary art display and celebrate their love of rainbows.

“It was not at all intended to be political,” replied Trisha Miller, who said she was a member of the knitting group which spent months creating the ribbons out of leftover yarn.“If people actually perceive it as such, then it’s time we all take back our rainbows and display them everywhere.

“All we wanted to do was brighten up a bleak winter day when folks drive by there and give them a smile.”

The group had originally intended to weave the strips into the fence along Dog Beach but BNSF crews had removed the fence and the knitters were looking for another location, Vicky Reich said.

“We have put a good deal of time into knitting the strips and would like to have our efforts stay up for a while, which is why I (contacted the city) to ask permission for something that we would have done guerilla-style before,” she added.

While often done without permission, Vicky Reich, one of the representatives of the local knitters, contacted the city of Sandpoint in the past month to request approval to install the art at the location.

The colorful knitted strips were part of a temporary display of public art — known as “yarn bombing” — on a few of the city’s trees and was done with the city’s permission by a group of local knitters who simply wanted to add a little color to Sandpoint. As such, the city entered into an agreement to allow the colorful, knitted ribbons to be wrapped around the base of the trees, Sandpoint officials said in a press release.

The trees approved for “yarn bombing” by the knitting group are located on the city-owned right-of-way on Boyer Avenue, at the intersection of Cedar and Main. The temporary display, once returned and reinstalled, would be removed by June 14, 2020, to ensure the health of the trees.

“Yarn bombing” — also known as yarn storming, guerrilla knitting, kniffiti, urban knitting, or graffiti knitting — has becoming popular in cities across the globe, and includes tree wraps such as the ones that were installed by the local group this week. Other cities have had displays ranging from wraps on bicycle racks to entire buses.

In the meantime, city officials and members of the knitting group called for the return on the knitting strips.

“We are hopeful he/she will see this post and return the knitting strips to City Hall so we can coordinate with the knitters to reinstall them,” Sandpoint City Administrator Jennifer Stapleton said.