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How To Make A Christmas Tree Pillow Form A Sweater

I’m so chuffed at how I managed to make a cute and cuddly Christmas tree pillow out of a plain boring old wool sweater.

When I saw this green jumper in my junk trunk (yes, I have a trunk full of old sweaters and jeans waiting to be upcycled), it was screaming out to me, Christmas tree!

I’d made cute sweater mountain pillows and acorn-shaped pillows before, so it wasn’t a huge leap to Christmas tree pillows. Just a different colour, with a few decorations! This pillow was really simple to make. Upcycling sweaters for Christmas is one of my favourite crafts.

DIY A Cute Upcycled Christmas Tree Pillow

Pom poms were the perfect decorations for my Christmas tree pillow as they look like colourful baubles. And who doesn’t like a pom pom!

It also helped use up some of my embarrassingly large yarn stashes. However, I’m going to need to make a whole forest of Christmas tree pillows to make a real dent in it.

Green sweater before

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What you need to make a Christmas tree pillow

How to Make an Upcycled Sweater Christmas Tree Pillow

  1. First, felt your sweater by putting it in a hot wash in the washing machine. If you’re like me you have probably done this loads of time by accident, where you shrink your favourite sweater to a size only fit for a toddler to wear.

    (If you want more felting details you can find them here)

2. Next, lay your felted sweater out flat. Using the chalk mark out the biggest triangle shape the sweater will allow.

chalking out tree shape on sweater

3. Then, cut out the triangle shape. If you have a brown felted sweater, you can cut out a trunk for your tree at the same time.

Pin and sew up the cushion outline, right sides together, leaving a gap at the bottom.

making a Christmas tree pillow

4. Next, turn the pillow right sides out and stuff with fiberfill before sewing up the bottom. There is not a lot of sewing, so it can easily be done by hand if you don’t have a machine.

5. Finally, using the pom pom maker make the pom pom decorations in various colours and sew them to your tree. I made 10 pom poms to adorn my repurposed sweater Christmas tree.

making pom poms
Make a really cute Christmas tree pillow from an old green sweater.  Add fun and colourful decorations to the sweater tree with pom poms.
Make a really cute Christmas tree pillow from an old green sweater. Add fun and colourful decorations to the sweater tree with pom poms. #Christmascraft #sweater #Christmaspillow #repurposed #upcycle #pompom

I’m always making pillows out of repurposed old sweaters and have one for other seasons too, such as these acorn fall pillows and bunny pillow for Easter.

Don’t forget to keep the sweater scraps, they can be used for other Christmas crafts. Such as these repurposed sweater balls and funky felt garlands.

Pom poms are also a great way to use up scraps of yarn and colours can be combined to make multicoloured pom poms. I combined different coloured yarns into one pom pom when making Marimekko styled pom pom flowers. I even made a Christmas tree entirely out of pom poms.

Make a really cute Christmas tree pillow from an old green sweater. Add fun and colourful decorations to the sweater tree with pom poms. #Christmascraft #sweater #Christmaspillow #repurposed #upcycle #pompom

If you want some more DIY Christmas pillow ideas check out favecrafts.com.


Pam @Threading My Way

Friday 12th of January 2018

Super cute, Claire. Sorry for the late comment. Pinning for next year.

Claire Armstrong

Friday 12th of January 2018

Thank you, Pam.

Ivory

Saturday 23rd of December 2017

You never disappoint, I love these, will be pulling out old sweaters. Thanks, and Happy Holiday's

Claire Armstrong

Saturday 23rd of December 2017

Thank you, Ivory and Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to you too!

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Jessi @ Practically Functional

Friday 8th of December 2017

This turned out so cute! Perfect for getting the sofa in the holiday season!

I just wanted to let you know that you were featured as a Rockstar at last week's Creativity Unleashed party! Congrats, and thanks for sharing at our party! https://www.practicallyfunctional.com/creativity-unleashed-201/

Claire Armstrong

Friday 8th of December 2017

Thank you, that's awesome!