Choosing between real and alternative Christmas trees clearly depends on your sustainability goals. There are hundreds of alternative DIY Christmas tree ideas you can try, but have you ever crocheted a Christmas tree? If not, then this group of Indian ladies who have built a giant, 18-foot Christmas tree using crocheted granny squares in the Museum of Goa, India, might offer some inspiration for your creative juices to flow.
A group of 25 women from The Crochet Collective and a civil engineer came together to make this installation, aiming to revive the traditional craft technique as well as highlight the creative power of women.
The project began when Sophy V Sivaraman met Sheena Pereira, a member of an online crochet group who dreamed of creating a large-scale crocheted Christmas tree. What started as a small gathering soon grew with more women from different areas joining in. The effort was completed when a civil engineer volunteered a metal frame and covered the transportation costs.
The team has collectively crocheted each granny square by hand and made more than a thousand individual pieces to complete the tree. These hand-crocheted pieces are then stitched together one by one over the metal framework to look like a well-decorated Christmas tree. It is not a mere seasonal decoration, but a sculptural piece that carries a craft value.
All the women crocheted all the pieces at their homes, and finally they assembled the tree in one of their co-workers’ homes. The team members even utilized their own yarn when they faced a material shortage.
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The crocheted Christmas tree features a layered and colorful design that grabs the attention. There is no use of readymade decorations, just the crocheted yarn squares make the tree look attractive, with lighting strings inside the tree’s frame to give it an ethereal look at night. It is a great community project from India that aims to highlight the fading traditional crafts that Goans used earlier.
The final step of the project was finding a home for the crocheted Christmas tree. With the support of the Museum of Goa’s curator, a dedicated space was created where visitors can experience the once-forgotten art of crochet, introduced by the Portuguese in the 15th century.
Via: The Better India
