BRICK – If you drive on down to the Ocean County Library Brick Branch in December, you’ll get to see a unique handcrafted display symbolizing holiday spirit and togetherness.
At the center of the building is an almost 10 ft. tall Christmas tree completely made out of crochet squares.
A dedicated group of yarn spinners spent nearly all of 2024 preparing the special holiday gift. It’s crafted with 500 crocheted yarn squares in a rainbow of colors and assembled around wooden supports.
Senior Librarian Laura Meeker-Korch brought the project to the Brick Branch after seeing similar work in the Little Falls, New York Public Library.
“Two gentlemen, John Ossowski and Mike Beehm, made it to honor their mothers and the fiber industry in the area,” Meeker-Korch said. “It was so pretty, and I thought ‘I want to do that. I think our community would love that.’ So, that gave me the idea to start the community program.”
“I thought it was better to extend it to the community instead of just doing it myself or with the branch,” she added.
Nimble knitters Sun Borden, Elizabeth Bushong, Jean Deval, Joyce Dombrowski, Linda Horm and Christine Wray began creating squares in January of this year during two regularly-scheduled programs, “Crochet Around the Corner” and “Crochet Palooza.”
“For Crochet Around the Corner, we met once a month and I introduced a new square. We worked on the one square on meeting days to work any difficulties out, then they took the pattern home,” Meeker-Korch said. “Sometimes I provided the yarn if we wanted a specific color, or members would use their own yarn and made a bunch of squares at home towards the tree.”
“With Crochet Palooza, I had one pattern, it was called the traditional granny square. I would put out the pattern and enough yarn to make one square. People could pick it up and take it home and bring back the square if they wanted to include it in the tree,” Meeker-Korch said.
They collected about 15 to 20 squares each month from the Crochet Palooza. The Crochet Around the Corner program saw a core five to 12 participants each month.
The tree stands at about 8 ft. tall and 4 ft. wide; and with its topper close to 10 ft. tall. The tree began to form back in September, where the group started putting the squares together in sets of four.
“Since the squares would come out as different sizes, I pre-sorted them by size, and then we would each take a small set and put them together, then that would grow,” Meeker-Korch said. “There’s also three skirts comprised that is on the tree.”
Meeker-Korch expressed how the Crochet Tree is the group’s gift to the community, and is immensely proud of its outcome.
“These wonderful women – there was a set of about seven that came on a regular basis to the in-person program – but I have no idea how many actually contributed because of the take-and-make program,” Meeker-Korch said. “But it’s getting the involvement, something that continued, a year-long project and that this is the outcome. We all worked together to make something beautiful and now we get to share it with the community.”
The Crochet Tree may be a one-time project, Meeker-Korch explained. But the group plans to resume meetings in February and will discuss if they want to take on another community project.
The Community Crochet Tree display is free and open to the public during normal Branch hours.
