Upcycled some tacky Christmas ties into a Christmas Tree! 🎄 Then add them a sweater from the thrift store or your own wardrobe into a fun and festive Christmas tie tree sweater. It’s a perfect project for the holiday season to add something festive to your wardrobe!
For this project, all you need to pull this project off is a sweater or jumper (depending on what you call it where you live), some tacky Christmas ties, ribbons & buttons, as well as some basic sewing skills and you will be able to pull all this sweater off.
This is a perfect project to make as a gift for someone, craft together with a group of friends, or wear to a Christmas Sweater party. Let’s avoid the cheap fast fashion sweaters and make our own!
As you can see from the TikTok above (which I created 2 years after this project was completed) I didn’t only upcycle one sweater into a Christmas sweater but rather I upcycled three thrifted sweaters in total.
Check out my other upcycled Christmas sweater tutorials:
In the video tutorial above I am showing you how to crochet your own Christmas baubles & star-ornaments and decorate your sweater with those. You can watch the video here, however, if you prefer, you can keep on reading…
How to make the Christmas tie tree
To make your Christmas tie tree you will need
- Thrifted Christmas ties – I used 4 ties in total
- Lining fabric – I used a blue polyester lining
- Sewing Machine
- Matching thread
- Seam ripper
- Rotary cutter or fabric shears
- Iron
- Fabric marker
- Ruler
- Fusible web (optional)
- Hand sewing needles
- Pin/broche closures (optional)
- Safety pins (optional)
- Pins
For this project, I got this teal cable-knit jumper from the thrift store, as well as five tacky Christmas ties which I also thrifted (but I only ended up using four of them).
Before starting I made sure to hand wash the jumper, with my wool and cashmere shampoo, as well as the ties as some of the ties had light stains on them. I made sure to hand wash my jumper separately to prevent color leaks but I washed all the ties together.
Once the ties and the jumper had dried I laid out my ties on top of the jumper to decide on the design and placement. Once was happy with the placement I played around further by placing white buttons on the Christmas tree as “snow”, as well as playing with buttons & the ribbon I will use for the bows on the sleeves to get a sense of the final look of the design.
Once I was happy with the design I started to measure out how much of my ties I would need to take off to create an evenly balanced Christmas tree. Then I did cut off any excess length on my ties to make sure all my ties were of the same length.
After that, I unpicked my ties on the back to make it easier to cut the ties correctly before sewing the sides together.
Once all the ties were unpicked, unfold them and start to measure out with a fabric marker & ruler where you will cut to tie.
Then I cut my ties with my rotary cutter, but you can also use fabric scissors if you prefer to use that.
Once your ties are cut out, put two ties together with the right sides facing each other, pin in place on one side, and make sure the pins go all the way through all the layers including the interfacing and lining at the bottom of the tie.
Sew the ties together with a straight stitch on your sewing machine.
Once you have all your ties sewn together on one side, pin the remaining two pieces of ties together to form your tree. Once again make sure all the layers are pinned and that your ties lay flat.
Then sew it together… and here is my Christmas tree!
But we are not done yet… as I removed the backing of the ties we will need to add a lining to protect the raw edges and support our tree-shape.
I had some lining fabric laying around from a previous project which I cut out to fit the size of my tree. I pinned the lining, right sides together, to my tree on the top as well as on the side edges. At this point, I will not sew the bottom edge, but I’m pinning it in place to make sure the length and the fold are correctly placed.
Then I made sure to cut off any excess fabric before sewing in place and stitched the top as well as the side edges whilst leaving the bottom edge open.
Now it’s time to turn the tree to the right side and making sure that you pull out the corners, and then press your Christmas tree with your iron.
Off-camera I stitched on some white buttons on the tree to create a ‘snowy’ look. On the top, I will attach this bow which I got on a gift box once and then I will also add a button to the middle of the bow to match with the look of the bows I will make later on to place on the sleeves.
Once I had stitched on the bow + button at the top of my Christmas tie tee it was time to attach the bottom edge of the lining. I first started to hand-stitch the lining in place, but I was too tired and impatient so the stitching didn’t turn out that great. As such, I decided to use a fusible web instead. You can use either method depending on what you prefer – just make sure to not hand stitch when you’re actually ready for bed. 😉
Put the fusible web in place and make sure it’s close to the edge without it peeking out – then press the fusible web in place with a hot iron.
Initially, I had planned to sew the tree to my jumper but I decided to attach a broche-closures to my tree instead so that I can remove it if necessary. This will probably make laundering easier and you can also attach the tree to any jumper you like – including your favorite one!
I placed one closure at the top and one at each side of the bottom then I hand-stitched the closures in place, making sure to only attach them to the lining and not the ties on the front.
Then I attached the Christmas tie tree to my jumper!
But… after trying my jumper on I realized I needed to add more closures to the back of the Christmas tie tree, especially in the middle on the sides of my tree. Unfortunately, I didn’t have any more at hand so I used safety pins instead for now.
How to make the bows for the sleeves
To make the bow decorations you will need:
- Black satin ribbon
- Glitter ribbon
- Assorted buttons
- Matching thread
- Hand sewing needles
- Safety pins
- Sewing machine (optional)
Now it’s time to make bows for my sleeves I made them really simply by folding them in half and stitching the edges together on my sewing machine. However, this works equally well to do by hand as well.
Then using a needle and thread I created gathers in the middle of the bows with running stitches and then pulled the thread around the bows to keep the gathers in place.
Now it’s time to add a button to the middle of my bow using both a needle and thread. I attached the button as I would have done if I were sewing it to a real button-closure.
Then I repeated the same process for all the remaining bows.
In total, I made eight bows: three black satin ones, three glitter ones, and two using both the black ribbon, as well as the glitter ribbon.
Now it’s time to attach the bows to my sleeves. First I measured my sleeves to figure out the bow placement. I measured from the cuff to the edge of my shoulder and placed the four bows evenly with safety pins where I wanted my bows to go. Once I had decided which bow will go where I attached it by hand to my sleeves.
And now my jumper is done!
I really hope you enjoyed this tutorial and if you did consider subscribing to the Miss Matti Youtube-channel for more upcycling, DIYs, and living an awesome & sustainable life.
If you want to see any other upcycling and DIY tutorials I would love
to hear from you what you want me to create in 2019. Leave a comment down below and let me know!
