The Forest Gate Christmas Tree
During lockdown in 2020, crafters in Forest Gate worked together to create a socially distanced masterpiece - the Forest Gate Crocheted Christmas Tree. Balls of yarn and crochet patterns were delivered through postboxes, and each crafter made a number of granny squares at home. When lockdown lifted, they came together to sew the squares together, eventually hanging them from a specially designed metal structure made to fit over a lamppost in the square.
The tree is made up of 1,750 crocheted granny squares!
"Hazel asked me to crochet a bluetit for the spring project. (…) I can do granny squares – I did over fifty granny squares for the Christmas tree (…) but he was all skew-whiff like his chest was round here and his tail was (…) and I was thinking ‘Oh no, that’s not right’. So I said to her ‘Can I knit it instead?’, ‘cause I know where I am with knitting, I can follow a pattern, I can increase and decrease, it’s no problem. (…) So then of course I did four bluetits for that (…) I’m the bird lady now (…) If anybody wants a bird knitted they come to me!"
Ro
"We started handing out the yarns and people started crocheting. We managed to put it together in the September I think (…) there was a point where we had three days when we were allowed to get together indoors in a large space (...) And that’s when we laid it all out – people had been bringing stuff back, collecting more yarn, carrying on. People all over the world."
Hazel
"I crocheted squares (…), helped with the planning. Flanders helped - Flanders was always given the credit because he’d pick up all the balls of wool that went all over the floor (…) I did the clouds on the spring one (…) and made a little Flanders dog to go in that."
Jenny
"I really, really enjoy doing community projects. So I really enjoyed doing the Christmas tree and that was again, that was really good during lockdown ‘cause it gave people a connection. (…) It’s just been a real joy, to be fair. And I think so many people could get something from it."
Ro
"I hadn’t kicked off the project yet because in the end of the February we went into lockdown and also every crafter I knew was making scrubs and masks."
Hazel
"The council didn’t put up a Christmas tree one year. They said budget cuts. And so everyone was moaning about it (…) I made a very quick carnival one out of ribbon (...) And I went, ‘Well, that’s a really quick thing, you know, but what about we crochet one for next Christmas?’, little knowing that Covid was about to come."
Hazel
