The Cardinal-Candy-Cane Tree Skirt

Remember back in September when I said I was done with Christmas projects, that I would now focus completely on year-round projects instead of seasonal?  I lied.  I have one last Christmas project today: a tree skirt!

I wanted to make one last year for our little apartment tree, but it never happened, probably because I didn't quilt at the time and really had no interest in learning it.  We were skirtless last year, which wasn't a huge deal, because we celebrated Christmas at our families' houses in Florida, so no presents even touched our floors.  I forgot about it until we moved here and got a real tree.  While we aren't exchanging gifts this year, it just looked incomplete to have a big tree, lots of lights, and shiny ornaments without a tree skirt.  Plus, any reason to buy fabric is a good reason, so I ordered more Santa Claus is Coming to Town by Creative Thursday and planned out what I'd do.

I had pinned a few tree skirts on Pinterest in the fall as I saw them, but they were more "inspiration" than "plans," as so many of my pins are.  (Do you follow us on Pinterest?  I'm here, and Ariel is here!)  When I decided to make a tree skirt, I went back through and chose this one, from Esch House Quilts.  I'm embarrassed to say I haven't read anything else on this blog, but the tree skirt is fantastic!  I should add it to my Google Reader, because I'm sure a lot of other projects are going to pique my interests.

The tree skirt design uses stars and flying geese (as compass points) with a lot of negative space.  While I love the look of gray or white as my negative space, I knew Christmas called for red.  And I won't walk you through all the steps--the tutorial is very well-written--but here are some pictures from my project.

HSTs sewn!  I did all of these in about an hour, while still wearing pajamas.

Laying out the block design.

I wanted to have some fun with each block, and as much as I love red and white (red and white quilts kill me), it's Christmas, and Christmas calls for crazy.  I bought more of the cardinal print from Santa Claus is Coming to Town to accent the stars and compass points.  I placed them randomly throughout the blocks.

Rows are pieced; now I have to lay it out.

Basting.  This is when I close the door to keep all cats out!!

I quilted it simply, and only in the white spaces.  The quilting really didn't matter to me as much, so I used white thread and followed the lines of the stars and points, as you can see below.  Maybe if I could FMQ I'd have quilted trees or stars or something, but I can't.  Someday!

Quilted and "squared up" (not really.)  That mishap near the top left was covered with binding--phew!

On the tree!  I wanted to take pictures in the daylight, because otherwise you can't see the skirt, but of course that means you can't see the lights.  Womp womp.

I am really so pleased with this tree skirt.  My binding, while definitely imperfect--I even watched a Love of Quilting on PBS about binding and still can't get it!--improved on this project, and the colors matched perfectly.  I'm a dummy and didn't get any pictures of the back, but it's backed with the green trees print from Santa Claus is Coming to Town.  I used the green trees in Nick's stocking and the white cardinals in my stocking, tying it all together!  I also used FreeSpirit Solids in red and arctic white.  I love using FreeSpirit Solids (I used Nugray for my Chicopee quilt) because they're a finer weave and don't fray as much as Kona solids.  I'm not paid to say that--I wish I was!--but I truly mean it.  FreeSpirit and Moda Bella are my favorites.

Are you working on any last-minute holiday projects?  I've gotten back into garment sewing recently, but I want to finish my quilts in 2013--and now I have to hold myself accountable, because it's here on this blog!