Tight-knit community members wanted for a good yarn

A GREAT tradition is set to continue this year in St Leonards, as end of year preparations for Christmas are starting to take shape.

The St Leonards Community Committee, which forms part of the St Leonards Progress Association is on the hunt for local community members to sew, knit and crochet the popular Christmas yarn-bombings that will decorate 28 trees along the town’s main strip throughout the months of December and January.

The trees that are set to line St Leonards’ Murradoc Road will aim to bring a sense of brightness and festivity to the area, which locals and visitors greatly appreciated last year.

The initiative is being led by the St Leonards Community Committee’s chairwoman Marie Reed, who says she’s looking to find 28 volunteer sewers to help produce this year’s yarn-bombs, equating out to one bombing per sewer.

Ms Reed has been a resident of St Leonards for 12 years and this will be the second straight year that she will conduct the initiative, after it was revived in 2020 seven years after the original yarn-bombings in 2013.

“Meeting new people is one of the major benefits in doing the St Leonards yarn bombings, we already have roughly 15 to 20 people already interested in participating this year,” Ms Reed said.

“This is also a great activity to do during isolation and it is just a lovely and positive project for the community at this time of the year.”

Ms Reed also said that the yarn-bombings will be up around the 27th of November and will couple with the Christmas tree cut-outs that will be made and decorated by students of St Leonards Primary School and placed along the fence of Harvey Park.

“The tree cut-outs are a real community effort on behalf of the students at the school, the St Leonards Men’s Shed, the City of Greater Geelong, the St Leonards Lions Club and the Progress Association,” Ms Reed said.

“It really is awesome to see as a tourist and also a resident.”

If you would like to find out more about the St Leonards yarn-bombings, you can get in touch with the St Leonards Progress Association via its Facebook page.