I have been seeing many of these yarn Christmas trees that appear to be made by knitting a cord or chain and then folding the layers together to make a tree shape. Some of them had beads in between the layers but I decided to focus on adding things on the bottom of the tree to resemble a trunk.
For all three trees, I used the same yarn that was leftover from another project. A green medium weight yarn with a tinsel wrap.
The first way I thought that would work to make one of these trees was to finger knit it. Perfect for someone who has no knitting supplies but maybe has some crafting yarn. I had to go back to one of my posts from a few years ago to remind myself how to finger knit.
I didn’t know how long to make the “snake” so I kept folding it as I went to gauge how much I needed for the tree. I then used a darning needle to thread the tail of the yarn from the top down through the tree. I threaded through three square wooden beads to make the trunk of the tree. This particular yarn was scrap green Christmas yarn with a tinsel wrapping on the yarn. When I removed the tinsel, the yarn became very fuzzy and I thought it looked cute as a tail under the beads. Frizzing the yarn also made it hard for the beads to fall off.
The second version of the yarn tree was made by knitting with two 5.5mm needles. I cast on three stitches, knit 100 rows and then cast off. Lots of turning the yarn doing it this way. Again, at the end, I threaded the tail of the yarn with a darning needle down through the tree. With this one, I found that doing three passes through the tree, middle, right then left, kept the tree from having gaps. For this tree I thought to try a wine cork as the trunk. I had to drill into the cork from both directions with the corkscrew to get enough room to fit a darning needle through. I tied a small knot on the bottom but that cork was not going to fall off either way.
The third version of the this tree was also knitted using two needles. This time I cast on 60 stitches, knit two rows and then cast off. It was easier to do it this way as there was less flipping. Again, I went up and down through the tree three times to keep it tight. I had some narrower dark brown beads that I used as the trunk and I just tied enough knots in the yarn so that the beads wouldn’t fall off. The button star was added to the burlap twine at the top.
All in all, I liked how all three turned out. The finger knitted one resulted in a puffier almost 3D tree. The cord with the three stitches and many rows was almost as wide as the finger knitted one. The one with 60 stitches and only two rows was the tightest cord of the three and made a more compact tree.
This project would work with any leftover yarn. Perhaps you would like your Christmas tree to have all white mini trees on it. If you are going for a colour themed Christmas tree, this is an easy to make ornament to add.
Of course, as usual, this foray into make a corded yarn tree sparked an idea for another corded ornament. That tighter tree shape really reminds me of a gnome’s hat. More to come in a future post; you know how I love my gnomes!
You excel in creativity, my girl. 🤗🌲⛄️