A tree gets a sweater

There was a lonely tree in our backyard, so I decided it needed a sweater…

I used a bunch of Red Heart Super Saver scraps for it, since they’re too itchy for me to wear, and some buttons from the stash my sister gave me for Christmas.

So, above is a picture of the yarn-bombed tree.  Please excuse the crocheted bunny down below, I had taken this picture for another purpose which involved bunnies and Easter eggs. 😉

If you want to make one for a special tree in your life, here are the basic guidelines.  Of course, every tree is different, so you’ll have to custom-fit it to your tree, but here’s the ‘pattern’ if you’re interested…

1.  Head outside with some paper, writing utensils, tape measure, and yarn with the crochet hook you will be using.  Make a chain to fit around the bottom of the tree.  You will be crocheting the cozy from the bottom-up.  Allow a little bit of stretch so it won’t be baggy later. Then write this number down.  (I used worsted weight yarn and a size I hook, which worked well for me.)

2.  Measure the length that you will want your tree cozy to be.  Write this down too.

3.  Is your tree trunk pretty much the same circumference all the way up?  If so, skip to Step 4.  If not, this will involve a bit more work.  Measure around the tree trunk at random intervals (write all this stuff down, of course.)  Then write down the distance between the measurements.  You will need this when decreasing for your trunk.  If your tree trunk gets wider as you go up (which I’ve never seen, but you never know…) then do the same thing for that part.

4.  Eventually the branches are going to branch out.  I only yarn bombed one branch to make it easier.  If you want to yarn bomb more than one, you can do a separate piece to put around the other branches.  Anyway.  Measure when the branch starts and how long it is. (meaning ‘half the circumference’, not the total length.)  Then continue up your branch, measure how long you want the cozy to go, and that’s pretty much all the measuring you need to do.  (You’re writing all this down, right?)

5.  Now we get to go inside and start on the crocheting.  (I suppose you could crochet outside if you prefer.)  Locate the chain you made in step 1 and sc in the 2nd ch from the hk and in each ch across the row.  Now you’re going to be doing normal single crocheted rows (ch 1, turn, sc across) until you reach your first measurement change – like when the branch narrows, or another branch starts growing from the one you’re yarn bombing.

6.  To decrease, either skip a few stitches throughout the row, or sc2tog several stitches together.  I used the second one because it leaves less holes, and I did it at either side of the row.

7.  To go around a branch, keep on single crocheting until you’re reached the point where it’s just one branch again.

8.  Keep crocheting until it’s the right length, decreasing/increasing as necessary.  Then fasten off if you want another color for the border and buttonholes.

9.  Buttonhole Placement: Space the buttons more-or-less evenly up the sides.  Make sure you have one at the bottom and one at the tip.  Important: When you reach a spot where the tree branches off, put a button at the bottom of the new branch’s location and at the top.  Sew all these buttons in place.

10.  Sc along the side of the tree cozy – opposite the buttons! – with your border color.  Whenever you reach the spot opposite a button, make a small ch-loop and keep sc-ing along.  Then fasten off the border color and weave in all those ends.  (I crocheted mine in as I went.)

11.  How are you going to keep your tree cozy on the tree?  My cozy ended at a fork in the tree, so I joined the yarn to the top of the tree cozy, chained about 40, and slip stitched back down.  Then I sewed a button on the other side of the fork, looped the chain through the fork, and buttoned it down.  It kept the cozy from sliding down the tree, although it was snug enough that I think it would have been okay anyway.

12.  Put the tree cozy on the lucky tree.  Then take a picture and post it on your blog/Facebook/Twitter/other popular social networking service, or better yet, sneak it onto a neighbor’s tree!  I will have to think about that… 😉