I’ve wanted a small skirt for my 6’ holiday tree for years but could never find one I liked. They are usually too big for my needs (with no presents to exchange or anything to put under the tree) and the styles not to my taste. So this year I decided to finally make one myself!
I looked online for some patterns, but the ones I liked were all for quilted skirts which required more time and energy than I was willing to invest, and more fabric than I had on hand. I was hoping for something simple and quick to make that had some weight to it without needing to be layered and quilted.
I let the project sit in the back of my mind for a couple of weeks. But then I happened to be at the dollar store a few days ago, walking down the holiday decoration aisle, and saw they had a bunch of Christmas-themed placemats piled together on a shelf. The ones on top looked to be made of either vinyl or some type of woven straw…not materials I could use, but an idea started to form in my mind about using such pieces for the skirt, so I took the chance to continue searching through the pile of placemats. A few layers down I found several 18” × 12” plaid woven-style mats that were of acceptable colours and had the right kind of weight/stiffness that could possibly work for my needs. I looked at the labels: 80% cotton (20% polyester) and machine washable. Perfect! Thinking that I wouldn’t feel too bad if I ended up messing them up, or not using them at all and giving them away, I bought six of them to experiment with (four green, two red) for $2.50 each.
I realized pretty quickly that trying to make a round skirt out of them wasn’t going to work, so I decided a hexagonal skirt was the way to go. I’m not sure if there was a more efficient way of cutting up the mats, but I did some initial calculations and digital sketches to get me started and then proceeded from there. I started to cut out the trapezoid-shaped pieces from the mats…and that’s when I realized that the red mats were not equal in height to the green ones…but I rolled with it. After cutting out the pieces, I arranged them in the desired order.
I was initially going to stitch the pieces together by hand, but they frayed easily, so I used the sewing machine instead. I also cut strips of cotton from an old-and-falling-apart pair of pyjama pants to use as binding for the two raw edges on the end pieces where the skirt remains open.
I honestly didn’t feel like I knew what I was doing initially (or throughout most of the process), but I’m so happy with how it turned out! It looks unpolished, but that adds to the charm, and is the perfect size and look that I wanted for my tree! Not at all bad for $18!
I might eventually add some ties or buttons on the end pieces so that I can fasten the skirt closed. I could even extend the skirt outwards or add some appliqué or other bits and bobs to further develop its personality and uniqueness…but I’m in no rush.
Finished size is 28” across between the parallel/straight edges of the hexagon, and 32” point to point.
