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How to Make a Christmas Tree Skirt

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Inside: Quilted Christmas Tree Skirt Pattern

I’ve never been one to over-decorate my home for Christmas. Instead, I prefer setting out things with sentimental value.

When I pulled out the holiday decorations, I realized my Christmas Tree Skirt lacked both sentiment and style. Instead of a beautiful, festive skirt that wrapped around my tree, I had a serged piece of black fabric. We’re talking seriously ugly and completely lacking in holiday cheer.

It’s time for something new.

How to make a Christmas Tree Skirt You Will Love

While I could easily run over to Target and purchase something that would be beautiful, I wanted a Christmas Tree Skirt that could be cherished by my family.

I needed a simple Christmas Tree Skirt Pattern that I could sew quickly. It should have a little quilting, but not too much. The pattern and supplies must be economical. We’re talking no more than a weekend project.

A Simple Quilted Christmas Tree Skirt Pattern

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It so happens my friend Caroline Critchfield created a class with a simple Quilted Christmas Tree Skirt Pattern that fits my criteria. Seriously, easy. And, because it isn’t complicated, it’s really fun, too.

How to make a Christmas Tree Skirt You Will Love

Pro Tip: Check out my tutorial on Strip Piecing. It has a few hints that will help you with the process.

One thing that makes the pattern fast is the lack of cutting. Instead, the pattern calls for a bundle of pre-cut strips. After looking through some of the tree skirts that other class members had created, I went with a scrappy look. I made one simple change.

The center of the tree skirt mimics the star-shaped outside edge. Because of the shape of our tree, I decided to make my center circular-ish. Because it’s under the tree, it will never be noticed, anyway.

How to make a Christmas Tree Skirt You Will Love

The pattern uses simple elastic button closures so no buttonholes! It can also be reversible. Just add a set of buttons to the back and you’ll be good to go.

How to make a Christmas Tree Skirt You Will Love

What sets this pattern apart is its clever use of the stitch and flip Quilt As You Go method (Caroline refers to it as “foundation piecing”).


To better understand, watch this short video that demonstrates how to stitch and flip.

I give this class my highest recommendation because it’s simple, economical, and quick.

For $9.99, the class includes video instructions, a printable Christmas tree skirt pattern, and PDF instructions. Click here to purchase Caroline’s Quilted Christmas Tree Skirt class.

How to make a Christmas Tree Skirt cover image

Finding Fabric

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Sometimes it’s difficult to find Christmas fabrics, especially the closer you get to the holidays. Check out Fat Quarter Shop’s Christmas Fabric Store. They always have a great variety of Christmas jelly rolls which are recommended for this project.


BONUS: Make Matching Potholders

I had a little fabric left over from my tree skirt project and decided to make a few potholders from the scraps. When creating the tree skirt, the instructions call for the strips to be sewn together in sets of nine. From there you take the blade template and cut out the individual sections.

This leaves a little bit at the end of each strip set and that is enough to cut out four potholders. For the back of the potholder, use leftover fabric from the tree skirt backing. From my pre-cut strip bundle I still had four additional 2.5″ strips. These are the perfect size and length for binding the potholders.

Step 1.

Cut out the following for each potholder:

potholder supplies

Step 2.

Add layers in this manner.

  1. Bottom fabric right side down
  2. First piece of batting
  3. Insul-Brite
  4. Second piece of batting
  5. Top piece right side up
  6. Optional Step: If your fabric has a simple design, you might want to add a few Christmas Appliques to jazz them up!
  7. Use a walking foot to stitch diagonally. I set mine to 2″ apart.
quilting Potholders.
quilting potholder

Step 3.

trimming potholder

Trim down to 8.5″ x 8.5″


Step 4.

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  • Fold the 2.5″ strip wrong sides together and press.
  • Attach to the back of the potholder using a 1/4″ stitch allowance.
  • Turn the binding to the front and stitch down.
  • Optional: To keep my binding from shifting when I stitch it down on the front I add pieces of 1/4″ Steam A Seam  near the folded edge and press. Nothing moves!
adding binding to potholder

I was able to make four potholders from my scraps. It took me about two hours from start to finish. Won’t these be wonderful at Christmas?

How to make a Christmas Potholders.

My favorite part was being able to use up most of my scraps. After making a Christmas Tree Skirt and four pot holders this is all that was left.

Fabric scraps

I love, love, love simple projects like these two. And being able to use most of my scraps was the cherry on top!


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