Because it’s so close to Christmas and you just need one more sewing thing on your plate!

This is a fun project that you can make as simple or complex as you’d like!  This is similar to the tutorials I’ve seen from Mathew Boudreaux Mister Domestic and Amanda Rolfe of 3 and 3 quarters, however I’ve changed some things that they mentioned.  I’ll give you the basics, and later I’ll give you some ideas to mix things up!  Here’s what you’ll need for this project:

• A Christmas tree
• A ruler
• Spare jellyroll strips (Or 2.5″ x WOF strips)
• Some back fabric (This size depends on the size of your skirt)
• Batting scraps
• Rotary cutter
• Scissors
• A flipping helping tool of your choice (A pencil, a chopstick, that purple thang, whatever)
• *Optional* a 60 degree ruler
• Sewing basics (sewing machine, thread, bla bla bla) and a quarter inch foot and *optionally* a walking foot

The first step you’ll want to do is measure how long you want your skirt to be.  What I did was measure from the inside of my tree out to the outside of the legs, which, the tree I’m making for is a mini tree, so my measurement was seven inches.  This let me know I just needed to make it at LEAST seven inches, but if it were longer, that would be fine.  I knew I had some jellyroll strips left over, and that four sewn together would make an eight inch skirt.

I sewed my jelly rolls together in a group of 4, using a quarter inch seam, keeping the patterns a little mixed up.  I also pressed all my seams going one direction, which is important later.  What I did next is different from other tutorials I’ve seen; I took my 60 degree ruler, and I put it where the tip of my triangle went over the top jelly roll by 2 inches.  That way I don’t have to worry about cutting out a center hole for the tree!  Then I flipped the triangle back and forth, cutting out a total of 6 wedges.  One wedge may have needed a little extra help becoming a full wedge, and I decided to put that one where it would be in the back.  Flipping it back and forth ensures a few things; I’ll have seams that will nest and my strips will be mixed up.

 

Once I’ve got my 6 wedges and I’ve arranged them into a hexagon shape, I start sewing those together.  I sew 1 to 2, 2 to 3, and so on, but I DO NOT sew 6 to 1.  That way you’ll have a full hexagon with a slit, that way, YOU CAN PUT IT ON THE TREE! (omg!)

After this part is finished, I also do something a little different from other tutorials, because I didn’t want to fuss with binding.  I layer together my skirt “top”, the back fabric, and my batting.  I have my fabric right sides together, and the batting on the bottom.  Your fabric for the backing will depend entirely on your skirt, but my back needed about a fat quarter.  I didn’t have a fat quarter that I wanted to use, but I had some left over jellyroll strips and a “chunk” of fabric that I sewed together to make as large as I needed.  I sewed along the edges, using a quarter inch seam, all the way around the hexagon, leaving a gap about 4 inches long at the most.  It doesn’t really matter where you leave this gap along the edge, but I might suggest putting it on the inside of your slit so that it really won’t be as noticeable.  If you’re wanting to add ties or loops or something to close your skirt, I’d put it somewhere else, but I’m not so I didn’t.

 

I used my rotary cutter to trim off the excess batting and backing fabric around the outside, my scissors to cut the slit and inside hexagon, and I snipped the corners so that they’d flip out to a nice crisp point.  I also snipped the corners on the inside of the center hole, just so they’d flip out nicely as well.  If you haven’t guessed yet, the next step is to flip everything right side out!  Since your fabrics were together, when you flip, the batting will end up on the inside!  Take your time with this step, and use the pointy tool of your choice to poke out the corners to your liking.  Once you like how things are looking, take it on over and give everything a nice press, and take time to fold your flip hole seams in on themselves.  Put a couple pins in your flip hole space just to make sure they stay together.

 

Take your skirt back over to your machine, and do a nice top stitch all the way around the tree skirt, including going up both sides of the slit, around the center hexagon hole, and back down the other side.  I started at the point I put my flip hole, so I didn’t have to worry about it later.  Once you’ve gone all the way around, you can feel free to quilt this however you’d like!  I kept it pretty simple and just did a quarter inch away from my seams on one side of each jellyroll strip.

And look at that!  You’re done!  So festive!  So wow!

Other things you could do to make this look different is make two different jellyroll strips, and making your skirt reversible!  Another thing is to not even use jellyroll strips, and maybe using a printed fabric and a solid fabric and use them together!  EVEN another would be to take a bunch of scrap fabric and make fabric chunks, then sub cutting from those!  Imagine the possibilities. 😮  Another thing I did to use up some materials and not go buy more was I  used some strips of  batting that I’d trimmed off from another quilt and sewed those together using a zigzag stitch and just made it as big as I’d need.  Doing it the way I did it, this project maybe took an hour, maybe a smidge more?  I was also dealing with a never-ending cold and watching Drunk History, but either way it’s not an all day project.

Are you still sewing?  You’re running out of time for Christmas sewing!!! 😮  Sorry, I had to be the one to break it to you.  But if you do this, please feel free to tag me on Instagram or Facebook using @cutefluffinstitch or #cutefluffinstitch!  Until next time, happy sewing!