It is time to start thinking about our next project for Spring / Easter, and then the upcoming Coronation. Hopefully people will want to get involved in crocheting or knitting for these themes. The Duck Race / Spring & Easter / Flower Cascade. We are aiming to get this tree up in mid March.

1. The Duck Race. For this we need ~250 plain blue squares. As previously knit or crochet, in acrylic double knitting, 19cm squares. Any shades of blue, but please, just blue. As a guide I have done either 9 or 10 rounds of a standard granny square on a 4mm hook with double knitting to get this size (it has varied with different yarn). I have also tried a wavy water pattern, so feel free to experiment to make the 19cm squares.
   We also need applique style ducks in yellow to look like the ducks in the annual Easter Monday duck race. I have made up the ducks below and am thinking about trying to write out a pattern…. they are 15cm beak to tail. If you find a suitable pattern please share a link. I think these are Super Duck size, so we may want more smaller ones! We want separate squares and ducks please so we can arrange the ducks to look like the race!

Duck pattern – just do in yellow. (pattern You tube – https://youtu.be/X33SMDtRL_c)

3D Ducks – patterns can be found here. Don’t need many of these, this is a later idea and will be strung around the base of one of the hoops. Patterns | The Little Yellow Duck Project

2. Spring. Think general spring colours, light greens and yellows. We need around 200 spring green squares (same size as above), and then yellow / pink flowers, applique bunnies and chicks / eggs. EDIT to add that if you want to make a square with a spring/Easter motif within it that is fine. I just started thinking how many appliques we could have to sew on!! Happy to have both though  Some suggested pattern links:

Free Pattern: Crochet Bunny Appliqué – Bella Coco Crochet

The Crochet Blog Baby Bunny Applique FREE Crochet Pattern

3. Flower cascade. This will be the top part of the ‘tree’. We want as many bright colourful flowers as you can make. Some suggested pattern links:

5 FREE Crochet Plant Patterns – Bella Coco Crochet

Crochet Daisy | FREE Crochet Flower Pattern – Bella Coco Crochet

Crochet Flowers – Bella Coco Crochet

Pattern – Spring Daffodils | HappyBerry

4. Coronation. This is for a bit later on, but we would like 10cm squares for this (around 5 rounds of granny square). 112 red, 96 royal blue, 128 white. This is just for starters for the Coronation, there could well be more! Keep watching this space. EDIT to add to complete the layer on the tree we will be after the usual 19cm squares in Purple and Gold. Plus some crowns – pattern to follow.

We will need to reconfirm drop off points, so get started, and we will let you know where to drop them off soon. Feel free to show us your progress and share any good patterns you find (as allowed by copyright).

We may ask you to crochet or sew some together this time once we have thought about how best to join them this time – it was a huge job last time!

EDIT to add that we love ALL your contributions, but to ensure everyone gets to see their bit, could we ask that you please limit yourselves to 10 of any squares/ducks/etc for each section. If needed we will ask for more later.

Thanks everyone!

For those interested, here are some of the technical drawings of the structure behind the tree. All produced by Paul Middlehurst.

This shows the scaffold pole, and positioning of the steel hoops. The scaffold pole is positioned into 1 cubic metre of concrete. The structure was given more support for the weight of wet yarn by wrapping 2mm steel wire in a zig zag way around the hoops. The yarn cones were also fastened to chicken wire.

The different size hoops from the largest one at the bottom shown on the left. There was an additional small hoop at the top, which the lighting was fixed to as well.

I may add photos of the calculations of the cone sizes… but I did those, and they don’t look as impressive as the above drawings!!

Saturday 3rd December 2022

So the big day finally here. 8am the van loaded up and the checklist checked!

First task on site was to cut back some of the large overhanging branches which were quite high up. We put up the scaffold platform for this.

To construct the top cone we rested the scaffold pole on part of the platform and put the top 2 hoops on. The top hoop having the lights attached to it. A lesson learnt for next time to note which way the lights are facing! Leaving space for the star on the top, then measuring 1.5m down for the second hoop. Bolts greased and secured we then fastened the wire between them to support the yarn. This was a little bit harder than planned as each wire needed to be attached separately as we couldn’t pass the roll through the top hoop.

Time to attach first yarn cone 🙂

Joined the yarn cone to the top hoop with wire first, then aligning to the bottom hoop and joining up the edge. At this point I realised I had positioned it wrong, and the join would be at the front, but we decided it would still be okay. Too difficult to undo it and reattach at this point.

This was the cone that had been drawn slightly wrong, so did need a bit of stretching to fit.

And then the first string of lights was also fixed using wire, also attaching the crochet cone to the wire structure underneath. Then fixing the star in place!

Notice also the detail – wires wrapped around the arms for the lights to stop birds sitting there and pooping down the tree!!!

Time to attach the third hoop, position the fourth hoop on the ground, and get the pole and first cone up into place.

The relief at this point was amazing!!

While I had been attaching the first yarn cone to the hoops, Paul had also fixed the solar panel to the fence.

Second cone worked well. We ‘unfixed’ the scaffold pole at the bottom to allow us to spin the structure to attach the wire and the yarn cone, so we didn’t have to move the scaffold platform. We attached at the top first, then secured neatly at the bottom. Joined (at the back) and then attached the crocheted lights. Then guy ropes were affixed inside the structure.

Thanks to Sanctuary Cafe for providing teas/coffees AND breakfast barms, which kept us going!

Third section – we are getting the hang of this now!

And done by 12.30pm!

We are excited to be part of the new Lymm Community Garden at Lymm Sanctuary Hub and Business Centre. They have enabled us to find a place to put our tree and get the relevant permissions. Please help us fundraise for the costs of our tree, AND the new Community Garden. We have a sub fundraising page for anyone specifically wanting to donate to the tree costs, but please also consider supporting the bigger project.

Karina Middlehurst is fundraising for Lymm Sanctuary Hub (justgiving.com) (Lymm Tree specific)

Lymm Community Garden – JustGiving (whole community garden project)

The Lymm Tree is an exciting piece of community artwork to be located in the new Community Garden at the Lymm Sanctuary Hub and Business Centre. Please can you help us to fundraise to support this exciting community space in Lymm.

Following the successful Jubilee Yarn Bomb in the village, and the positive response to the crowns and guards we would now like to do something on a much greater scale that will bring even more attention and fun to Lymm Village.

Last year a village in Devon created a yarn Christmas Tree, and we would like to create The Lymm Tree.

 It will be approximately 4m tall and a 2m diameter at the bottom, made up of hundreds of crochet / knitted squares, supported on a steel and wire structure, with a concrete base in the ground.

Initially the aim is for this to be a Christmas tree, but we aim to build on this and change the theme over the seasons to support other events in Lymm.  For example cascading poppies for Remembrance, ducks at Easter in line with the Duck Race, boats / cars for Historic Transport Day, general linkage to the canal.  The three part modular structure will give us flexibility for other seasonal theme formats.

This has already begun as a real community project with many crafters of all ages contributing their squares to the project.  

See more about our progress by joining our Facebook group Lymm Yarn Bomb

28th November 2022

We have had a few discussions about the lighting.. We don’t have access to power, and part of the attraction of this to the community garden, which also involves Low Carbon Lymm and LEAF, was that it would use solar power.

Facebook must have ‘heard’ this, as I was getting LOTS of ads for solar powered lights, as were the others in our group. However, there were concerns that these would not be bright enough. I was given demonstrations of different ‘lumens’ and persuaded that whatever Paul could make would be better!!

Another concern we had was where they will be placed and the risk of vandalisation (sad to say).

The LED spotlights will be fixed by metal arms to the top hoop on the tree shining down, along with a smaller light shining up on the star (this was another late decision).

I currently have a solar panel being tested for its output in my dining room, to see if it will be enough to power the lights in winter, and 12V batteries being charged. Some old toys have been chucked out of a Really Useful Box (I should have shares – they really are useful for storage and we have loads!), ready for the electronics and battery to be kept in under the tree.

Electronics are still being worked on – currently waiting for the timer to arrive! The idea is that the lights will be on from when it goes dark for about 7 hours (4-11pm), and then a motion sensor after that, in case anyone comes near the tree, which will be behind a locked, but low, fence. There is CCTV on the side of the business centre building, but no light, so something is needed for CCTV to be of any use in the dark.

And the star for the top of the tree. I just crocheted a five point star out of some glittery wool I had (I needed more, so a visit to Black Sheep Wool was involved!), and then Paul cut some metal to the right size and shape. Then made a collar for it to sit very snuggly on top of the scaffold pole. He has had a very busy week finishing these things for us!

24th November 2022

After digging the hole, we still needed to wait for written permission for the concrete to go in, but finally the day arrived!

Shoring has been added around the hole, to be removed when dried, to ensure neat edge. The tube for the scaffold pole to go into has had spokes welded to it for strength in the concrete, and so the scaffold pole doesn’t sink.

And then with the concrete

Now with the wood removed:

6th October – 21st October. Painting 9th -11th November 2022

The hoops have been finished by Paul at Gareth’s workshop.

This involved machining the collars for the centre of each hoop that will be secured to the scaffold pole. From solid steel cylinder:

Welding the hoops already made to the radials and the centre collars:

And now ready to clean them up and start the painting,

With me for scale!

Huge thanks to Paul, and Gareth and Dave for use of their workshops!!

19th November 2022

We had a few delays getting going here. We are extremely grateful to Lymm Sanctuary Hub and Business Centre for including us in their plans for the Lymm Community Garden, and for obtaining the necessary approvals for this to go ahead.

I marked out the hole for the base on Friday, ready for the team to dig on Saturday morning.

In progress

Thanks to Mark and Jack Bolton for digging the hole, and Joanne for supervising. A super tidy job!

19th November 2022

We started by laying out chicken wire over the middle cone shape to work out how much was needed and how many strips of chicken wire needed to be joined together. Fortunately the cone shape fitted on just 2 widths of the chicken wire. We joined the strips together with wire ties, then lay on top of the paper cone to cut the chicken wire to the cone shapes.

After that we lay the middle cone squares over the chicken wire, and stretched to fit. We joined the squares to the chicken wire around the edges first with wire ties, then turned it over and joined every other square(ish) to secure them together.

I had spotted an error in one of the figures on my top cone, so we only completed the bottom and middle cone here. I could just about manage to fit the top cone on the floor at home later!