This week I am bring you the first instalment of my tutorial on how to make a Felt Tree Skirt.
Materials needed this week......
- 2m of Thick felt (the felt that I bought was 92cm wide so all I needed was 2m. This pattern is customizable, so if you want a larger skirt and can get wider felt buy more length)
- Batting (I bought a cot size traditional polyfil batting 114cm x 152cm. It fit my size skirt but if you are going to make it bigger you might have to get a larger size of batting)
- Red thread
- Green thread
1. Marking the circle
• Measure 46cm (half way across your circle if you are making a different
size) from the outer edge of the fabric towards the centre.
• Pin the start of you measuring tape to the 46cm mark.
• Now you might need a bit of help with this part. Using your measuring
tape as a compass mark out your circle. Take your time. I only made
little dash marks all the way around. Then after went back and carefully
joined up the dashes.
2. Cut out the red felt circle you have just made.
3. Cutting out the 2nd felt circle
• Place your first circle on top of the felt for you second circle.
• Carefully cut out your second circle using the first as a guide.
• Before taking the two circles apart place a pin in each circle facing
towards the centre in the exact same place on each circle.
4. Cutting out the batting circle
• Place the first circle on top of the batting
• Carefully cut out the batting.
• Doing the same as you did with the second circle place a pin in the
batting in the same place as your first circle.
5. Making a felt and batting sandwich.
• Place one circle of felt, then the batting making sure to line up the
pins and making sure that both the felt and the batting are
completely flat.
• Place the second circle of felt on top of the batting, once again
making sure to line up the pins and getting the felt completely flat.
6. Pinning the outer edge of the circle
• Pin around the outer edge of your circle sandwich
• While you are pinning around make sure that all the layers line
up and are even.
7. Marking up the divides (you need to divide up the circle so that you
place designs evenly around the circle)
• Using a large ruler or something large with a straight edge, mark
a line going from one side of the circle through the centre mark
to the other side of the circle using tailors chalk or something
like it.
• To mark the line crossing the first, fold the line over on itself and
place pins on the outer edge of the circle in the folds.
• Using the ruler mark a line going from 1 of the pins to the other
going through the centre mark.
• Measure across the circle from one marked line to the next
(see below, measure the red line) and divide the measurement
in half and place a pin in facing towards the centre.
• Repeat the last step in the 3 remaining sections of the circle
• Using the ruler mark a line going from 1 pin to the other pin
across the circle making sure to go through the centre mark. Then
remove the pins
• Repeat the last step on the last 2 pins
8. Making the back split
• Pin either side of 1 line from outer edge to the centre mark. Approx
1 cm either side
• Cut down the marked line in the middle of the pinned lines to centre.
9. Making the inner circle (We have a fiberoptic tree so the centre circle is
quite large (55cm around) to go around the electronic base that we need to
access every day while the tree is up. You will need to change the
measurements if you have a different type of tree)
• Using the same method as when you marked out the outer circle,
measure out from the centre 8.75cm and mark the circle.
• Pin the outside of inner circle
• Cut out the inner circle
10. Tack the chalk divide lines with a contrasting colour to the red
felt (I used Black)
11. Using your sewing machine stitch approximately 1 cm from the edge
around the outside of the circle, down either side of the slit and around
the inner circle using red thread.
12. Trimming the batting
• Pushing the felt to either side snip away to batting up to the seam,
making sure not to cut the seam or the felt.
• Do this all the way around the sewn seam.
13. Sewing the decorative stitching around the tree skirt
• Insert your needle and thread between the two pieces of felt and
then outwards to hide the ends of the thread
• Roll in the two pieces of felt from the seam allowance inwards on
the edges as you go and either whip stitch or blanket stitch using
a couple of strands of green thread. I've done mine in whip stitch.
Here is an over all idea of the layout. This drawing is almost completely
to scale, the only thing is that the pattern for the presents have now been
worked out yet so they might look a little different.
Next week, we will start cutting out the pieces and sewing them on.
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