DIY Large Yarn Knitted Tree Skirt

Ready for a fun (easy) Christmas DIY project? This year I decided I was finally going to knit the tree skirt of my dreams. I’ve wanted a knitted tree skirt for years but with a price tag of $100+ there was no way I could afford one.

And they’re always sold out after Christmas!

So I armed myself with a little bit of determination and decided to whip up my very own large scale knitted tree skirt for my pretty flocked rose gold and blush Christmas tree!

While I know I can knit I was worried about taking on such a large project (I’ve only ever knitted scarves) but with the large yarn this project was actually super easy and only took 2 movies to complete!

Which is great since I was afraid this little tree skirt would take weeks to complete.

Let’s get started.

Supplies:

Large Scale Yarn (3 Skeins will do about 40 inches, for 60 inches you’ll need 4 skeins)
Large Knitting Needles
Time!

Psst: Looking for even more ideas? Scroll to the bottom of this post to check out a few fun Christmas trees my blog friends have put together!

Step 1: Cast on a Stitch

Okay y’all the very first step in this tree skirt is to cast on a stitch… which is a fancy way of saying we’re going to make a stitch and put it on our knitting needle.

Start by laying out about 11 feet of yarn. Then form a loop in the yarn like the photo above… you should have 11 feet of yarn on the left, the loop of yarn and then the entire ball of yarn on your right.

Next reach through the loop with your hand and grab the yarn that leads to your yarn ball.

Pull the yarn that leads to your yarn ball back through the loop along with your hand. This will give you a loop and a knot… pull the 11 feet of yarn end until the knot is snug down tight like in the picture below and not super loose like in the picture above.

Then you can pull your ball of yarn end until the loop is an appropriate size.

Now that we have a loop go ahead and put it on your knitting needle. Then pull both ends of your yarn until the loop on your knitting needle is snug.

The knitting needle is basically a guide for how big your stitches should be… when you pull your yarn snug it keeps your stitches at a consistent size!

Alright, now that we’ve cast on one stitch we’re going to use the 11 feet of large yarn we set to the left to cast on the rest of our beginning row.

We need 22 stitches across for the first row and we’ve already done one so 21 more stitches to go! We’re just going to repeat the process except now we have a knitting needle involved.

Start by taking your 11 feet end of yarn and forming the same loop from the very beginning.

Now reach through the loop and grab the piece of yarn that leads to your yarn ball. Pull the piece of yarn through and you’ll have another loop!

Now instead of guessing how big to make that loop we can use our knitting needle.

Simply place the loop onto your knitting needle where it will become our next stitch. Then pull both the 11 feet end and the ball of yarn end until that loop is pulled taught around the knitting needle and the excess yarn is pulled tight.

Just like all the stitches in the photo below!

Got it? Now repeat that process until you have 22 stitches across your knitting needle! As you continue to create stitches you’ll have less and less space on your knitting needle… that’s okay just squish them together… it won’t hurt a thing.

At the end of your 11 feet length of yarn you should have 22 stitches cast onto your knitting needle (all roughly the same size) and only a bit of a yarn tail left over.

For now just ignore the yarn tail… we’ll weave it back into the tree skirt once we’re finished knitting.

Step 2: Knit 3 Rows

Alright y’all, now it’s time to knit. Go ahead and turn your knitting needle around so that all your stitches are in your left hand with the needle facing the right.

Now all you’re going to do is knit all the way across the row. If you’ve never knitted before it’s super easy.

Simply push your empty knitting needle behind the first stitch. Your knitting needles will cross and the empty needle will be behind the full needle. Now take your yarn (the side that’s connected to the yarn ball) and wrap it around your knitting needle.

The bit of yarn you just wrapped around the knitting needle is your new stitch. Pull it through the loop of the first stitch and you’re good to go. You have the first stitch in the second row!

Now put your knitting needle behind the second stitch, wrap the yarn around, pull the wrapped yarn through the loop and you have the second stitch in the second row.

See how that works? Go ahead and work your way across the entire row and then flip your knitting needles over and start again.

Back and forth… like a type writer.

Keep going until you have 3 rows of stitches.

Step 3: Add an Increase Row.

Alright y’all, now we’re on row 4 which is going to be an increase row. Basically as we knit if we keep 22 stitches across all the way down our pattern we’ll have a square, or a rectangle, or a table runner.

In order to have a tree skirt we need a circular pattern. So on our fourth row we’ll add a few increases which will make our row longer. We’ll add an increase row every 4th row in the pattern for this tree skirt and by end we’ll have a tree skirt.

Ready for the increase. On row four go ahead and knit 3 regular stitches. Then stop and pull apart your knitting needles like in the photo above. Do you see the piece of yarn stretching from one knitting needle to the next? That’s called the bridge and we’re going to use it to add a stitch.

First off put your finger under the bridge and pull the bridge a bit so that it’s loose from either side.

Now take the bridge and twist it into a loop. This will be tight as there isn’t much yarn to work with in the bridge. You should have the bridge twisted around your fingers in a loop like in the picture above.

If you were to turn the entire knitting shebang around (like in the photo below) you’ll see both knitting needles, the loop of the bridge and the tips of your fingers.

With the tips of your fingers grap the live yarn that leads back to our yarn ball. (See the picture above).

Pull the live yarn through the bridge loop so that you have a new loop.

Take this new loop and place it on your right knitting needle…. now pull your live yarn so that the new loop is snug. At this point you should have 3 regular stitches and 1 new bridge loop on your right knitting needle with the rest of the stitches still on your left knitting needle.

And that’s how you add a stitch!!

See how it looks in the picture below?

Now all you need to do is continue the pattern… knit all the way across the row with 3 regular stitches and then 1 increase stitch. Once you’re done with that row go ahead and knit 3 regular rows followed by 1 more increase row.

Keep repeating this process (3 regular rows, 1 increase row, 3 regular rows, 1 increase row, 3 regular rows, 1 increase row) until you’ve completed a tree skirt in the size you’re looking for!

As you can see the knitting needles get full of stitches pretty fast… this is big yarn though so as the knitting needle gets full I simply pulled my knitting needle free letting the existing stitches lay on their own as I continued knitting across the row.

Just be careful not to pull out the stitches and you’ll be fine.

Once you’ve achieved a length you’re happy with (I went with a small 40 inch tree skirt since my tree is on a small box) it’s time to cast off the tree skirt!

Step 4: Cast off your Stitches

Ready for the last row? It’s super easy… we’re simply going to cast off like you would any other knitting project.

Go ahead and knit two stitches in the last row… then take the first stitch and slip it over the second stitch. Like a tiny little game of leap frog!

Then knit one more stitch and leap frog the second stitch over the third. Keep gong all the way across until the entire row is cast off and your stitches are all secure.

At the end you’ll have a tail of yarn left over (similar to the one we have from the beginning). Cut both tails to about 3 inches and then weave them into the back of the tree skirt!

Volia!

Now you’re finished!

I fluffed up all the stitches so that they looked even across the tree skirt and then wrapped it around my tree.

Ready for the final reveal?!

Of course, I wanted to hold this guy closed so I took a bit of the left over yarn and added a bow closure to the top and bottom of the closure.

Easy peezy!

I am in love with how it turned out! As confusing as it can be to read the project itself was really easy and saved me a ton of money (about $30 compared to the $100 one I was looking at from Dillards).

Plus I love that my tree skirt was actually made by me!