Celebrating Christmas at the End of a Pandemic Year
Christmas Tree 2020
What a strange year this has been. I think I have spent more hours in my home since March of 2020 than in many years combined prior to that. A lot of the ‘at home’ activity revolved around creative projects, so it would make sense that my 2020 non-traditional Christmas tree this year reflect that.
Since fibers are a bit part of my life and I have ample in my possession, I decided to create this year’s tree from all things related to yarn. You can see some of the ingredients below.
balls, skeins and cones of yarn
cord, tassels and pompoms
The core of the tree was set around some decorative display items that Starbucks used in their stores a few years ago. I had asked my local store if they were going to toss the displays at the end of the season, if they would toss it my way. Lucky for me, they did, and I’ve been using these yarn and glass ball displays in my home holiday décor for many years.
Decorative core, thanks to Starbucks
Around the tree I placed my cones of yarn around the core. Some of these were from my weaving years, and others from my current machine-knitting years. I attached tassels around the edge of the tabletop. These I made these as demo items in my Textiles class. When we began to study yarns, I showed my students how to create cord, and then how to build a tassel.
tassels placed around the edge of the table top
Next, I draped the hanks/skeins of hand-painted yarns around the base, and then, I positioned pompoms (also a demo item for my students in Textile Design) and balls of yarn to fill in the gaps.
The last item for the decoration was the stringing of lights. There you have it… a yarn holiday tree, #16 for me.
