Knitted Tree Sweater

My home town is sponsoring a fun event, decorating trees in the downtown area with knitted or crocheted sweaters. It will decorate the sidewalks in fall colors for the autumn months, heighten awareness of fiber arts, and be a fundraiser via tree sponsorships. After the event is over, tree sweaters will be removed and donated to pets in shelters to use as comfort blankets. I was lucky to be selected as one of thirty "tree artists". Trees with an inherent sense of fashion will wear these sweaters as their seasonal garb from the end of September until just before Thanksgiving.

 

There was an orientation meeting on July 30th at which I was assigned Tree #9. My husband, daughter-in-law, granddaughter and neighbor accompanied me downtown to measure my tree. Its height to the vee was 70". Each sweater must start at least 24" from the ground and cannot extend into the branching region. So the length of my tree's sweater length will be 46".

Trunk circumferences were as follows:

     32.5 "   just below the vee

     29"       at mid trunk

     30"       up from base 24"

I joked that my tree has a figure like Twiggy.

Here I am entering these measurements into my cell phone for future design considerations.

I spent over a week mulling over what I wanted to do and just started knitting about a week ago. For something eye catching I decided on colorful, graphic stripes. I'd inherited the beige flecked yarn and the red flecked yarn from my mom over thirty years ago and thought it would be a pleasure to work with. The beige would look like the bark of the trunk peeking through the "tree rings". I bought orange yarn because I had nothing that bright in my own personal yarn inventory. Zigzags would make it look like a Charlie Brown sweater. After all, if there can be a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, why not a Charlie Brown Autumn tree? I am using a size 15 circular needle and two strands of worsted weight yarn so it is going pretty quickly. Since it is at mid-height I switched to size 13 needles to make the sweater a bit narrower in the mid-section. I have eight stripes completed and estimate I will need 15 stripes in all. Since the sweaters are required to fit the trees snugly, the free length of the sweater may vary a bit to adjust the width tighter or looser on the trunk of the tree.

Tree sweater installation will be on September 27th. My plan is to crochet the long seam closed once the sweater is wrapped around the tree. Tree artists are requested to give a progress report to the city on August 20th. This blog post declares the status of my tree sweater project as on time and on budget and still having fun in the process!