“City Sidewalks, busy sidewalks dressed in holiday style”
Day 10! Done and “in the books” as they say. Yesterday we had some really cloudy, rainy weather that did not cooperate with my awful satellite internet, so sunny skies and clear weather was able to let me post this pattern from yesterday – Day 10 – and it is two patterns! I went ahead and finished up my two remaining tree since I only have 2 days to go *gasp* – I admit though that I had to delete a few things from my brain. I had 4-5 things left that I wanted to design and get blogged, but only two more days for my 12 Days of Christmas blog event means that I had to choose. Hopefully I will have time to do them anyway, but if not there is always next year. So, I give you Christmas Tree #4 and #5.
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UPDATE: Get the ridiculously low priced 12 Days of Christmas Pattern in a Downloadable PDF right here. You can ALL 12 Days of Christmas for one super low price. Merry Christmas! (Etsy only right now – I will try to get this over on Ravelry soon)
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If this is your first stop on my 12 Days of Christmas blogging event you will find 9 other days of blogging and tutorials with FREE patterns for Christmas – stockings, trees, gnomes, decorations and more:
All of these post have a different pattern and fun information. I am working hard to make a new blog post with a new pattern each day for all 12 days. Unless something drastic happens, check back here each day and see all the fun, holiday goodness. I already have my last day in progress – it will be big! Once I am all finished I will be offering a downloadable PDF with everything for one low price – just $4.99 will get you everything from my 12 Days of Christmas blog event – Merry Christmas!
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Kristi Bergin-Smith and The Burgundy Basket, 2019. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to me, Kristi Bergin-Smith and The Burgundy Basket with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Trees #4 and #5 are more of a “formula” than an exact pattern- like the gift bag that I blogged earlier -due to the fact that cone forms come in so many different sizes – so, with these two you can adapt them to the size you need. I am using a big bag of scrap green yarn, two cardboard forms (one is 23″ and one 14″) , and my I, J, and K /5.5/6/6.5mm hooks. You will also need your glue gun for these two trees. I used one or two strands of 4-ply worsted weight yarn (I will make notations as we go) and in one case I had 3 small skeins of sport weight #3 green that I held all together. I will note all that for each part below.
It is a photo heavy tutorial on how to make your own custom trees. These are the large hooks that I use.
The first step for the large tree is to crochet a “slip cover.” I chose to crochet double crochet since I was adding layers on top and not terribly worried about seeing any of the cone through my cover, but if you prefer you can easily change this to single crochet or half double crochet. You are basically going to crochet a cone shape. What that means is basically this:
Chain 2 or 3 (depending on what stitch you are working)
Make 4 stitches in the first chain (the one farthest from the hook) – that is round 1.
For each round you will add at least one – and sometimes 2-4 stitches – for me I did:
Round 2: Double crochet (dc) 5 around.
Round 3: Dc 6 around
Round 4: Dc 7 around
Round 5: Dc 8 around ….etc
Just keep increasing. Every few rows you want to try your slip cover on your cone and see how it fits. If you find that it’s snug pull back a row and make a few more increases. If it seems okay, but you feel that you need a little more room use the next row to add a few extra increases. On some of my bottom rows I was adding 4 increases per row. This part is largely up to your cone, your yarn, your tension, your hook etc. Just keep trying it on your cone and make the needed increases in whatever stitch you choose.
On the second to the last row I made sure to have a multiple of 5 stitches so that I could make a shell bottom – so, when you see that you have just a few rows left start counting so you get to a multiple of 5 stitches…then, on the very last row do a shell end if you want.
For the shell row: join and chain up 3 (counts as a stitch) and make 2 double crochet in the same space. (Skip 2, Dc 5)* repeat around until you get back to the beginning 3 dc and make 2 more dc in that first space and finish off. See the photos below.
For this next part, I grabbed my old “stash” yarn. I had 3 small skeins of sport weight green. I held all three strands at once and used my J hook. A good sub for this would be 2 strands and your K hook or whatever hook feels comfortable for the weight yarn you are using. You can even single ply this – although it will take a lot longer to finish – and part of my 12-days of Christmas patterns is to use your stash and not spends days and days to make some fun holiday items. So, grab the yarn you want – even two colors will be nice -and the hook you want and let’s get started.
I started with a chain 32 and then made double crochets all the way back up the chain. Once I reached the top I chained 35 and chained back up the chain 32 times (I left a space of 3 between each “branch”)..repeat – chain 35, double crochet 32, repeat…you can vary this a little as well to have slightly different lengths – maybe chain a few more or less etc.
When I got near the end of my yarn skeins, I started decreasing both the length of each chain and also the spaces in between the branches – so, for example, chain 24, double crochet up, (repeat a few times and leave only 2 spaces in between the branches up where you start your chain) – chain 20, double crochet up, repeat a few times, chain 16, double crochet up and leave only one space between branches, etc. I didn’t have a set pattern for this – just gradually decrease the chain length to form shorter “branches” up near the top. My last few chains were 10-12 in length with NO spaces in between. At the very end when your yarn is nearly gone just chain a bunch until your yarn ends or you have about a foot in length of chains. This is what I ended up with:
You can see the short ones up at the top and my chain at the end.
This part is super important to get the branches nice and relaxed and straight – take it to your ironing board and steam them down. If you don’t you branches will be curly *of course, if you are using just a single strand of yarn and big enough hook this may not be the case for you – but see the HUGE difference after steaming them down?
Now, what you want to do is hold them up to your cone with your slip cover on and position them so the bottoms of your longest branches hang to the bottom of your cone.
Gradually wrap and pull and wrap and pull and use your hot glue gun to secure in a few place along the way.
I used the tails from where I started my work to tie on the first row and make sure it was winding up like I liked before I started securing with the glue.
As you wrap you can pull tight or keep a little loose so that the long branches on the row above hang down in between the branches below to fill in all the gaps…see in this photo how I am trying to make sure to get the branches spaces so they fall in between the ones below?
This part is easy to manipulate. Make a few rounds and get them like you like before you add just a little drop of hot glue to the top of the branch where it lies against the slip cover.
Once I got to my chain end I just spaced it out kind of even and then worked back down again. This part is not going to matter at the end because this gets covered up.
This is what I ended up with after doing up my first layer of branches:
Now, you may be lucky enough that your yarn ended up just right and you had just enough to completely fill up your tree. My cone is the large 23” cone and this first layer of branches was not enough – so, I went back over to my stash and ended up grabbing this fun white cotton with flecks of green and red. I decided to make some snow covered branches.
You can get this exact yarn here. It is very nice cotton and also would make great wash cloth gifts with some soap for Christmas stocking stuffers.
I held one strand of the cotton yarn with one strand of a 4-ply worsted weight green and used my K size hook. I repeated the same type of process that I used for the first layer, but I wanted to make individual layers that would “fill” in where I needed them. So, making shorter chains and leaving less space between the chains I make a few extra layers- just figure out where you need to fill in some gaps and make your extra branch layers fit just around that part of your cone.
I ended up make two sets like this for the top of my tree with shorter branches and less/no space between them. For the top two extra layers I did chains between 9-16. If you leave a long tail before and after you can just tie these around and secure the ends under another branch.
For the “cap” of the tree you will:
Chain 2. Make 6 sc in the 2nd chain from the hook and then for the next round make 6 sc again. You can choose to work in the spiral or join and chain up 1 if that is what you prefer. It won’t make any difference on this piece.
Round 3 is (sc, sc, sc2) * repeat once more (8sc)
Round 4 is one sc in each stitch around (8)
Round 5 is (sc, sc, sc, sc2)* repeat once more (10sc)
Round 6 is one sc in each stitch around (10)
Round 7 is (sc, sc, sc, sc, sc2)* repeat once more (12)
Round 8 is one sc in each stitch around (12) – slip stitch in next stitch.
I chose to work the rest of the cap in hdc – but, again, you can change to sc or dc if you prefer.
You have 12 sc on the last round above – the last part of the cap will get 6 branches. You can chain the length you want – I did around 10 – So, where you left off above you will chain the length you want and work the stitch you choose back up the chain – slip stitch in the next chain and in the next and repeat for each branch. Each branch takes up two spaces on Round 8 – so, you work your chain and get back to the cap and slip stitch in the next and then slip stitch in the next to start your next branch. Attach to the top of your tree. I added a little glue to keep it secure. *I know, it kind of looks like a jellyfish =)
After I secured all of my extra snowy branches and cap, I still had a gap in my work up top, but it needed a green set of branches, so I pulled out a few more strands of green and repeated one more set of branches for the top to fill in the space.
Repeat this as many times as you need to get the fullness that you want. Just remember to keep your longer branches on the bottom and make shorter ones for up top. For all of my add on branches, I just used the tails to tie the on and then used a dab of hot glue and covered the cut ends with one of my branches above it.
I love the way this tree turned out – its kind of “hairy.”
This next small tree is super easy, but you may find it more tedious then the others because you are just going to make circles, circles, and more circles.
I used – again – two strands because I want fast and stash busting – but, I also really love combining two kind of ugly or plain colors and coming up with something fun.
I used 2 strands of 4-ply worsted weight and my K hook again.
Working in the CONTINUOUS Round:
*do not join and chain, but continue to work in the next stitch. Use a stitch marker for this so you don’t lose your place if you need.
Chain 2.
Single crochet 6 in the second chain from the hook and work over your starting tail.
Starting in the first sc make 2 sc in that stitch and in each stitch around. (12) *Still work over the starting tail.
After getting done with all 12 sc for that round, pull the starting tail to cinch up the opening. You can now trim that tail or weave it in or just leave it if it’s short because these will be glued down.
Make a bunch of these “medallions.” I made about 6-10 at a time and then got up and went to my ironing board. YOU WANT TO DO THIS PART: You need to set your iron on the high setting and get a bath rag (or something similar) and wet it so the rag is not dripping, but more than damp. Cover your medallions with the wet rag and place the iron on them completely covering them for about 7-8 seconds. This is called “killing” or “flattening” the yarn. You get a huge difference in how your medallions look – they look flat of course – but also special – a little vintage – a little wool like – and they are going to look so much nicer on your cone if you do not skip this step. The top left photo is before and the right is after.
After I had a big handful, I went to my glue gun and started the layers. Start with the bottom and slightly overlap and then work your way up.
After getting a row secure on the top and bottom, I pulled the tails from each medallion down on the side under the pieces and glued and secured each side. Then you can carefully snip off any hanging yarn.
Repeat this all the way up. When I reached the top, I realized that 4 of my regular size would probably be too much – it would be too big, but 2 was not going to be quite enough so, I made three for the final layer that went up one more round. So, repeat like the above medallions, but add a round 3 like this if you need a few large ones for the top:
Round 3: (Make 1 sc in next stitch, make 2 sc in the next stitch) repeat around (18)
And, again, you need to make a small cap for the top of this one as well to hide that pointy part.
The one in my example is just a starting circle of 6 with a few rows of 6 stitches. This may vary depending on your tree.
After completing my tree, I ended up adding some buttons. *my tree looks yellow in some photos, but my yarn is sage and green.
If you are a toy maker and make baby gifts, I just want to show you this:
It is in my Amazon cart right now waiting on me to get some Ibotta reward money and then this beautiful baby yarn is going to be in my house!
And that is it for Day 10! Two trees? Now that all 5 trees are done get to getting! Crochet your own trees and tag me over @theburgundybasket on IG so that I can see them. <3
