More Trees Than You Can Throw A Stick At!

Selection of patchwork Christmas tree decorations

I hope you enjoyed the no-sew Christmas trees that I posted about last time. Whilst I was making them, it occurred to me that I could try using some of my fabric scraps to make some patchwork trees. [In case you are wondering, yes, I have LOTS of fabric scraps!]

Green fabric tree

The first tree I made was the green one. Firstly I sorted through my green fabric scraps. Now, as you probably know, I absolutely loathe green, but somehow I have ended up with quite a pile of green scraps! How does that happen? I wasn’t sure how well my selection worked together so I asked for Peter’s opinion and he said they were fine, so I carried on.

I cut the cotton fabrics into strips – there was no actual measuring, I simply did it by eye – making sure that each strip would be wide enough for the section of tree that it was destined to be. I then hand stitched the strips together using a flip-and-stitch method.** When the stitched strips made a large enough piece, I found another piece of green fabric for the reverse [I used just a single piece]. I cut the two pieces out using the template, but I did not include the bucket part of the template.

Next I chose some mottled beige fabric to use for the bucket and cut two shapes from it using the bucket part of the template, making it about 1cm longer at the top. I used paper-backed fusible web to stick the front and reverse of the bucket and then the tree together. I fixed the bucket into position by placing the top 1cm of the bucket between the two layers of the tree in the centre of the bottom edge. To finish off the tree, I blanket stitched all around the edge of the tree in green and around the bucket in brown. [I think I should have used a paler colour around the bucket.]

Purple-striped tree decoration

For the purple tree, I used fusible web to fix strips of cotton fabric together and left the open edges raw. I considered stitching along each edge but I was running out of energy so decided against it! The bucket was made using a scrap of tweed. I wanted to attach the bucket in a different way for this tree so I made a simple cord by doing buttonhole stitch along the length of thread that I had sewn into position between the tree and bucket. I actually rather like this method as it looks similar to a tree trunk.

The reverse of the purple decoration

The third patchwork tree I made used crazy patchwork.

Crazy patchwork Christmas tree decoration

I used scraps of various Christmas fabrics in shades of red and green. I cut the fabrics into rough-shaped pieces of something like 1.5cm to 2.5cm and ironed them onto a rectangle of fusible web. I cut two tree shapes using the template and fused the two shapes together. I oversewed around the edge using two strands of embroidery cotton. I have not stitched the seams of the crazy patchwork, again due to lack of energy, but I think it shows enough to give you some ideas.

More ideas for decorations using scraps

**Flip-and-stitch is where you place two fabrics with the right sides together and stitch a seam. You flip one of the fabrics over so that only the right sides are showing, then place another strip down with the right side facing the right side of your working piece, and stitch along the seam. Flip that piece over and stitch the next.