oddly enough

oddly enough

Group wants to cover Warhol Bridge with knitting

PITTSBURGH

Andy Warhol’s art doesn’t often conjure warm and fuzzy images — but this tribute to the iconic pop artist just might.

A Pittsburgh-area arts group wants to cover the downtown bridge named for Warhol with knitted blankets.

Allegheny County Council still must sign off on the plan. But if it goes forward, the Fiberarts Guild of Pittsburgh will use machine-knitted blankets to cover the bridge’s towering superstructure while individual blankets knitted by more than 1,200 volunteers will be used to cover the bridge’s walkways.

Darla Cravotta, the county’s special-projects coordinator, said the group hopes to cover the bridge in mid-August and leave the blankets in place for about four weeks, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reported Wednesday.

After the blankets are removed, they’ll be washed and distributed to homeless shelters, nursing homes and animal shelters.

“It’s a positive community project,” said Amanda Gross, 29, the Pittsburgh artist leading the Knit-the-Bridge project. “The point is to knit stronger communities.”

A county-council committee approved the plan Tuesday, but the full council still must consider and vote on the plan.

“This is very cool,” Councilwoman Barbara Daly Danko said. “I would have never thought of this in a million years.”

The group has enough volunteers to knit the blankets but needs more to knit a black border and to work on joining the blankets to cover the bridge.

The bridge crosses the Allegheny River from Seventh Avenue downtown to the city’s North Shore, where The Andy Warhol Museum is located. Pittsburgh is Warhol’s hometown.

The knitting project is being funded by donations from foundations, businesses and individuals.

Czech companies present electric bicycle that can fly

PRAGUE

Is it a bike? Is it a plane?

Three Czech companies have teamed up to make a prototype of an electric bicycle that successfully took off Wednesday inside an exhibition hall in Prague and landed safely after a remote-controlled, five-minute flight.

Looking like a heavy mountain bike, it weighs 209 pounds. It has two battery- powered propellers in the front, two in the back and one each on the sides.

A dummy rode in the saddle.

Milan Duchek, technical director of Duratec, a bicycle-frame maker, says more-powerful batteries will be needed before a human takes a two-wheeled flight.

Associated Press