Make the Nowel Christmas Tree Skirt
I have had a number of ideas for Christmas tree skirts floating around in my head for years. It’s partially because I have had my own Christmas tree for 5 years (this is year 6), and have never had a tree skirt, mostly because I couldn’t find one I really liked. Or couldn’t decide, I am a very deliberative person.
Then this year my sister asked me for a tree skirt for herself. She has a pencil tree because when she and her husband first got married they lived in a pretty small apartment that was just over 400 square feet, and even though there wasn’t much space, there was no way she was foregoing a Christmas tree. Even though they’ve moved on from the tiny apartment, they still have the pencil tree. Because not a lot of people have pencil trees, it’s not very common to see tree skirts in stores for these smaller trees.
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Noel Tree Skirt (for an average sized tree)
My sister had a few additional requests aside from just a small tree skirt. First, it needed to be grey. Second she wanted cables. Unfortunately for me, she wanted the cables to go around the tree, not come out from the tree trunk, which would have been SO much easier.
I was surprised that the first request was actually not the easiest thing to accommodate. You would think the options for a super bulky grey yarn would be abundant. It turned out I was wrong, and could only find 1 suitable grey – the Oxford Grey in Lion Brand Thick & Quick Bonus Bundle which is a 100% acrylic. There wasn’t a comparable shade in the Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick & Quick to my surprise. But of course if you’re making this pattern, you can choose whatever colour you want! And Knit Picks Mighty Stitch would also be a great option! (affiliate links)
I used just over 1 bonus bundle of the Lion Brand Thick & Quick (so you would need 2), but you could always make a Longjohn Beanie with the leftovers! Or get 3 regular sized balls of Lion Brand Thick & Quick (Wool-ease or 100% acrylic).
The second request, cables going around the tree, I knew was going to be an even bigger challenge. I thought about it a lot. Like for a month. I looked to see if there was a pattern already out there that I might be able to learn from. There are some but they seemed to not be quite what I was looking for. So after a month of thinking, and doing a really quick swatch I sat down with pen and paper and tried drawing things out.
Once I had written out an idea of what I was doing it was time to just jump in. And to my relief, it was actually working! And I’m not gonna lie, I feel like for all the planning, there was a lot of luck involved. How do I know this? I’ve attempted to make a full sized version of this pattern, and it is NOT working. So maybe I’ll have that figured out for next year, but more planning, and more trial and error are needed there.
The Nowel Christmas Tree Skirt is also very loosely based on some things I saw from stores on Pinterest. The main inspiration drawn was the use of toggles, which was a suggested recommendation from my sister for her tree skirt as well. The toggles for this pattern are also optional, in the notes at the bottom of this pattern I provide instructions to not make the buttonholes, so you could just overlap the starting and ending edges instead of using the buttons.
I was very pleased to find that it didn’t take very long to actually make my Nowel Christmas Tree Skirt! I think it was just over 8 hours, so I think it would only take 8-10 hours for most people to make this skirt, it is just for a pencil tree skirt of course.
Once it was all done, one of the hardest things about releasing a pattern is coming up with a name. I’ve been really, really into all things British this fall and cables always make me think of Celtic things, which would include parts of the British Isles. I wanted the name to be fairly easy to pronounce, and to be somewhat unique. I looked for Welsh, Gaelic, Old English, and Celtic words for a few things. Nowel is middle English for Christmas, and eventually evolved into the word Noel, which we now associate with the French (which is another bonus for me, being both an anglophile and francophile).
If you have a smaller Christmas tree I hope you’ll make the Nowel Tree Skirt and I can’t wait to see your projects! Tag me on Instagram and use the hashtags #NowelTreeSkirt and #KnittleAndPearl.
Get the Nowel Tree Skirt pattern on Ravelry
Get the Nowel Tree Skirt pattern in my Shop
