As a board member of my neighborhood association, I can attest to great horror at the cost (and bureaucracy) involved with public art. Even the most innocuous of pieces starts at several thousand dollars, and months and months of hoop-jumping and consensus-building.

Enter knitting. While the solitary art of knitting has always had its community focus (think socks for soldiers), the concept of knitting together has had its resurgence in the past half-decade. This weekend, my friends Larissa and Martin Brown are celebrating the release of their book, Knitalong, which discusses knitting community through public art projects, knitting get-togethers, and (of course) online knitalongs; they write about fiber artists who have created "installations" ranging from the knitted wedding to a lovely project of a thousand knitted "peace cranes." Larissa is in the middle of creating a lovely installation of a hundred knitted cotton dishcloths.

If you can't build it, knit a cozy for it! An AP piece yesterday investigates the phenomenon of knitted trees, a public art trend which seems to range from artful tree sweaters to small-ish tree warmers to whole knitted trees (without the tree underneath). The tiny town of Yellow Springs, Ohio has a tree whose rather garish striped "sleeves" are compared by a local artist to graffiti street art -- but better, presumably, because of the overall lack of defacement (whether or not you think the tree cozies are artistic, they're quite simple to remove with a sharp pair of scissors if the public cries out).

Tree cozies are great projects for the community organization without major funding, or patience. Forget the RFP, the regional arts council board meetings, the high cost of bronze. Grab some spare yarn, some needles, and a couple of crafty friends and pick a tree.

See what Larissa has to say about this project:

Back in college when I was a knitting demon and had no cash to spend on high quality wool -- I came up with a solution that worked like a charm: I would go to thrift stores and buy handmade sweaters that some ingrate had cast off.

I'd unwind all that hard work that some grandma put into a ridiculously styled poncho and end up with a trove of gorgeous wool to make something that suited my tastes. Just this morning my husband went off wearing mittens that I made from one such misshapen thrift shop sweater.

But, and I'm showing my age here, that technique hasn't worked lately. It worked best 20 years ago when it seemed that me and my college roommate were the only geeks under 70 sporting knitting needles.

Since then knitting has gotten very trendy. That's caused a multitude of problems for my yarn recycling scheme. First of all, it seems, any sweaters made of high quality yarn that end up in thrift shops are snatched up before I can find them. I also surmise that people are holding onto their hand-knitted gifts more often now since bulky sweaters with too-long sleeves and fabulous yarn are all too in fashion.

Finally, craft stores like Michael's now stock all sorts of cheap yarn. If I want cheap yarn I can go there. And if I try the unwind-a-thrift-sweater technique, I risk ending up with wool that is not special enough to warrant the effort.

That's not to say that you can't make fabulous "handmade" items from used sweaters found at a thrift shop. Sarah Gilbert introduced me to a technique I've also seen emulated by artisans in the East Village -- slicing up used sweaters and turning them into something new and chic -- like these amazing hats (see photo). Now that's real talent.

Thrift shops also have, of course, a wealth of fabulous sweaters to buy, as Barry Summerlin learned. As for me and my needles, these days I'm avoiding the thrift shop and splurging on yarn at my high end, oh so trendy New York yarn store.

This post was written as part of a series on how to thrift shop smarter. Read more on what to buy, and not to buy, at thrift stores.