Tag Archives: tree skirt

New Pattern: Tannenbaum Tree Skirt

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It’s a very special day today.  (No, it’s not just Friday, October 13th, the spookiest day of the year)  It’s new pattern day!  And, better than that, it’s new Christmas Pattern day!

Knit Picks just published an insanely adorable collection, cram-jammed with cozy holiday patterns.

Everything in this book is stinking cute, and gives me “Cozy Christmas Cabin” vibes, which is exactly what I want when I’m gearing up for the holidays.

I think the cutest pattern might be this adorable color work Santa pillow.  I see myself spending the next couple months knitting up a handful of these bad boys.  I love how the hats of one row of Santas form he shoulders of the next row- very clever!

Santa Pillow by Kathy LewinskiAnd these stockings are just too sweet!  I love that they’re worked in bulky yarn (making them extra-big for extra presents!) and the non-traditional burgundy, navy and cream are a really nice alternative color scheme.  If I hadn’t already made my stockings, I’d be seriously considering whipping up a few of these guys for my family.  Maybe I’ll end up with a sweater featuring the reindeer and snowflakes…

Holiday Stockings by Michele Lee Bernstein

But, if I can totally toot my own horn, I think my pattern might be my favorite.  It’s the Tannenbaum Tree skirt!

It’s a creamy, cabled, cozy tree skirt knit in a single piece, featuring Christmas-tree-shaped cables all the way around.  (Trust me, it’s even cuter in person!)It’s a smallish skirt, about 30″ in diameter, so it’s perfect for a skinny tree, or a small table-top tree.  It’s worked in bulky yarn, so it works up in no time at all.  Plus (and I realize this might not be something that everyone agrees with), the cables are insanely fun to work, all complicated and twisty, but really satisfying at the end of the day.

If you want to get a copy of my pattern, head over here!

Or, if you want to get a copy of the whole Merry Knitmas book (and why wouldn’t you?), head here!

Inspiration: Tree Skirts

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OK, I’m going to share a little peek into how my brain works.  I usually try to keep the weird, free-association-y part of my brain a little under wraps, but here we are.

Last week I talked about how I’ve been dreaming of a cozy knit skirt. And yesterday I talked about how Christmas is 81 days away (actually, now it’s 79 days away!  Eek!).

Skirt + Christmas = tree skirt.

It’s a bit of a stretch, logic-wise, but hey, that’s what I’m thinking about today.

So, let’s talk tree skirts.

For the last 10 years (or whatever it’s been since I left home after high school), I’ve always had a little fake tree.  At first it was a 2-foot tall plastic guy that I could fit in my dorm room.  Then I moved to an apartment, and I got a waist-high silver tinsel tree (it looked especially gaudy with multi-colored lights.  It was the best.  My roommates hated it). Then I got to grad school, and had a more grown-up apartment, with room for a full-size tree, so I got one for $10 from JoAnn’s After-Christmas Sale.  I really scored, since we’re still using that tree years later (though it is beginning to get a little threadbare… it might need to retire soon).

I’ve never had a tree skirt- I just shoved presents down there to hide the foot of the tree.  Or, if I felt fancy, I’d grab a blanket (white, if I could find it), and kind of mushed it around the bottom of the tree to look like snow.  It wasn’t fancy, but it worked well enough.

But, last Christmas, my mom embroidered me a gorgeous felt tree skirt, just like the one she made when I was a kid.  It’s covered in all dozens of little appliques, beads and sequins.  I’m so excited to get out the Christmas tree this year so that I can use my new tree skirt.  (I’ll show you pictures when I get it out from storage- if I dug it out right now, I think my husband would get worried.)

Anyway, with tree skirts on the brain, let’s look at some pretty knit and crochet ones, and wonder why I never thought to make one for myself…

I like the use of granny squares to make a star in this skirt, and the combo of ivory and cranberry red is gorgeous.

Christmas Tree Skirt Pattern by Kara Gunza

crochet_tree_skirt-1-3_medium1Here’s another classy star-shaped skirt.  The use of graduated chevrons is very clever, and by changing the colors or stripe pattern you could come up with some really beautiful variations.

Christmas Tree Skirt by Donna Mason-Svaraskirt2_medium21Or if you wanted to go really classy, this lace-y skirt is just gorgeous.  You could make it in ivory for a real antique look.

7-Hour Tree Skirt by Katherine Eng6148_1_medium1But who says Christmas is a classy holiday?!  Not me!  I may have graduated to a tree-colored tree, but I still have that silver tinsel tree with the bright, multi-colored lights.  Christmas should be tacky and fun, in the best possible way.  And, this multi-colored tree skirt is just the ticket.

Granny Tree Skirt by Ann Regislw3208_project_medium21What’s your favorite Christmas style?  What do you celebrate this time of year?