Now here's a project for all those fat quarters you want to use up! Make a festive decoration from strips of fabric and a polystyrene base for a beautiful handmade finish that won't cost the earth. This can help use up your scraps too!

How to Make a Fabric Strip Tree

You Will Need

How to Make

  1. Start by ironing the interfacing onto the back of your fabric. If you're only using two designs then halve the interfacing across the width to make two chubby rectangles and iron these onto the back of each design. This adds structure to hold the shape of the tree.
  2. Next you need to cut your fabric into strips. I made mine into strips about 2cm wide by about 17cm long but you can see how long you'd like each strip to be by folding it in half and placing against your tree. I planned to do four layers of branches so tested that they would all sit snugly from top to bottom.
  3. Start layering up. Choose your bottom design and either using a glue gun or fabric glue, stick the ends together, wrong sides together. Once dry, attach from this end to the base of your tree, so each piece sits open slightly as shown. Continue all the way round until you have built up your bottom layer.


  4. Repeat the above step for the next two layers, alternating the fabric you use. Make sure you overlap each section enough so that you can't see the top of the previous one. 
  5. When you get to the top, glue carefully to create a neat finish with all edges lining up. For extra decoration, cut two stars from hessian and glue together on the top for a 'tree topper'.

November 29, 2018