Treetop Tidings Christmas Quilt Pattern

I'm not one for the traditional red and green colors of Christmas. It's probably because the traditional green isn't my favorite color. So I never pictured myself designing a Christmas quilt pattern. 

However, one day I was inspired to by an idea for a modern Christmas pattern which included strip piecing and using a 60 degree triangle ruler. 

Treetop Tidings is my Christmas inspired quilt pattern which uses fat eighths for accent fabrics. This means you get lots of different fabrics in your quilt and different blocks. 

Treetop Tidings can be made with the traditional Christmas colors or with nontraditional fabrics like the bundle I chose for the quilt I'm going to show you today. Either way you sew it, the quilt still comes out modern and festive. 

You can buy a copy of the Treetop Tidings Quilt Pattern here. 

Colorful fabric bundle beside an eight-strip triangle tree block with an orange trunk and yellow treetop square on cream.
Draped Treetop Tidings quilt showing staggered rows of colorful two-fabric and striped trees on a cream background.


If you have never sewn with a 60 degree angle, this is a great time to learn! And if I may say, don't be scared. I takes some slowing down and paying attention to detail.


If this is your first time sewing 60 degree triangles then practicing first would be a good idea. It's very important to sew them correctly or the blocks won't come out square. I made the mistake once of cutting my triangle corners at the slightly wrong angle thinking it was close enough, and none of my blocks came out square. So attention to detail is important! And if you know Geometry, a slightly different angle can seem small at the beginning, but the farther it goes, the larger the difference. 

If you don't have a 60 degree ruler I highly suggest buying one. A template is provided with the pattern. However, I think the ruler makes the cutting easier. You can see mine in the image below is a 10 inch ruler. 

Clear 60-degree triangle ruler and yellow rotary cutter on joined green strawberry and dark deer-print fabric strips.

Three cut triangle units alternating green strawberry and dark deer prints, each pieced from two fabric strips.

Two-fabric tree triangle with a dark deer-print top and green strawberry-print base, framed by cream side triangles.

The Treetop Tidings Pattern includes 2 sizes, a large throw size (63 in. x 79 in.) and a twin size (72 in. x 98 in.). 

The tree blocks are either pieced with 2 strips or 8 strips. It's important to know how to sew with a scant 1/4 inch seam. If you do not know how to or do not use one then the blocks pieced with 8 strips will not measure correctly. Again, not a difficult thing, but it's the details that matter in quilting. 

If you aren't sure how to sew with a scant 1/4 inch seam, I suggest cutting up some scraps and practicing before starting on the blocks for the quilt. Make sure the units come out the correct measurements. It will save a lot of frustration. And yes, that time I made all the wrong cuts and my triangle blocks didn't come out square, I ripped all the blocks apart and had to re-cut all the fabric. 

Strip-pieced triangle units in red, blue, green and yellow prints piled over a sewing machine.
Bright fabric bundle beside two tree blocks, one with two fabrics and one with eight narrow strips, on cream background.
By the way, if you like the fabrics I used, I purchased the bundle from my friend Joy. She has great fabric bundles on her site. Find them here. 

Unquilted Treetop Tidings top draped in a sewing room, with colorful triangle trees spaced across cream fabric.
I guess I should say I made this quilt in Asia where I only sew from my stash and I don't have a quilt shop to go to. So if I don't have the fabric on hand then I change course or don't sew it. 

For this quilt I used a fat quarter bundle. The pattern requirement is fat eighths, but since I only had fat quarters I used what I had and cut them in half. I was planning on saving the remainder of the fabrics for another project. However, I soon realized that the backing would need to be larger than I had fabric for. So I decided to use two extra blocks I made and the remainder of the fabric from the bundle to piece a panel down the center of my backing. You can see pictures below of me mid backing progress. 


Quilt backing in progress: leftover deer, strawberry, floral and star prints being pieced into a colorful panel.
The backing turned out super cute and I'm glad I spent the extra time to piece it. 

Treetop Tidings requires a lot of backing fabric. I'm listing the fabric requirements below:
Treetop Tidings material requirements chart for 63 by 79-inch throw and 72 by 98-inch twin quilts, including fabrics, batting and binding.
I was hoping to use a patterned background fabric for this quilt but the only fabric I had 4 yards of was this cream/off white solid fabric. So again I used what I had. It works well with the modern look of the quilt. 

Stack of tree units with cream side triangles, topped by a red floral and blue star-print triangle.
Striped tree block with orange trunk and cream background positioned at a sewing machine for piecing.
I'm not a huge pinner except when it's time to get a point to match up or when rows or columns are going together. 

Note: not all my points are perfect on my trees. I'm ok with that. Perfection is not why I quilt. 

I quilted this on my Janome sewing machine. I used a wavy stitch  and started at one side and quilted lines across. You can see below how much texture that added after just the first column was done. 
Safety-pin basted tree quilt with one column of wavy quilting completed and the remaining quilt rolled at the side.
I bound this Treetop Tidings Quilt with scrappy binding. It kind of felt right because the trees are all different colors and I wanted to add color to the edge since there is so much cream in the quilt. 

Folded quilt corner showing a blue and red tree, textured wavy quilting and multicolor scrappy binding.
Finished quilt corner with an eight-strip tree, cream wavy-quilted background and green and blue scrappy binding.
I also added one special detail to four different trees throughout the quilt. See in the image below. It might just be one of my favorite details of the quilt!
Hand stitching yellow thread around a treetop square, beside the finished radiating stitches above a blue star-print tree.
I thought about adding hand stitching to all the tree tops, but to be honest it took me a while to get the stitches just how I wanted them, and having them scattered throughout makes them special. 

Angled close-up of colorful two-fabric and striped trees on the finished quilt, with small yellow treetop squares and wavy quilting.
Oh, I forgot to show you the back. It turned out so cute! Here is a picture of it before the quilt was bound. 

Quilt backing before binding, with a colorful central patchwork panel and two extra tree blocks between pale alphabet-print sides.
Close-up of the quilt backing's central panel, combining two tree blocks with leftover bright fabric rectangles and wavy quilting.
Isn't that so fun going right down the middle of the back?!? I just love it and am glad I took the time to piece it together. 

You can get your own copy of the Treetop Tidings Quilt Pattern in the shop. 
Make it traditional or make it nontraditional, either way I'd love to see. Share on Instagram and take me @thenomadicquilter
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