Made It: Tree Skirt

We spent last Thanksgiving with my Dad and his wife and my brother and his family. While we were there my SIL and step mom started making these really cute tree skirts. They were nice enough to cut fabric strips for me and send me home with the fabric for it too. :) Since our decorations are still in storage and our tree was awful bear with out a skirt, I figured I'd just finish this one. I was too ambition and didn't wait to get the pattern and started cutting and sewing away. Come to find out it doesn't look ANYTHING like it's supposed to, but I couldn't figure out how else to make it with the fabric I had. Turns out I wouldn't have had enough fabric anyway, so no big deal. Plus our tree is modest in size, and I think the finished tree skirt would have covered our whole living room, so this works out well. :)

Thanks for your help and the fabric family! :)

 very quick Tutorial:

with a few edits.

It's super simple to make. For the center, cut 13 of one fabric and 12 of a coordinating fabric 4.5" square. Sew in a checkerboard pattern. Cut 8 strips of green and 4 strips of red 2.5" by 21". Sew strips together (green red green = strip set) and  sew one completed strip set to opposite sides of the checkerboard. For the blue cut 4 - 6.5" square  squares.Sew 2 blue squares on each end of the remaining 2 strip sets. and sew those on the remaining two sides of the checkerboard. The top is now finished. Sandwhich with batting and a backing fabric and quilt layers together. Cut (I think, may be more or less) 6 - 2.25" strips of blue fabric and use for the binding. Before sewing on the binding, cut ~5" circle from the very center of the tree skirt. Measure the middle of the skirt and the middle of one of the edges and cut a straight line. (I had found an awesome tutorial for this part, but I can't find it for the life of me. I'm sure my center would have turned out better had I been able to find it. oh well.) Then bind the entire edge. :)  You can add ties to close it or velcro or just leave it.

This is my favorite binding tutorial, though I don't really have any tips about binding the center circle, as mine doesn't not look very good. (http://crazymomquilts.blogspot.com/2008/10/binding-tutorial.html)

I tried to get Baby to pose with it, but all he wanted to do was "sleep". :)

He's totally faking! 2 seconds later he got up and unplugged the lights.
He's so stinking cute.

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