I had a tooth pulled this week and was feeling like a quiet activity so I decided to make a tree skirt. I had been mulling this idea in my head for a while and wondered if it would work. I had picked up a used tree skirt during Trash to Treasure without realizing that it was torn. I have wanted to find a way to make it useful again and was playing with the idea of QAYG strips on the front. The front was a velvety surface on which someone had very nicely painted several beautiful partridges but with the rip it made trying to repair it impossible. I cut out the Christmas scraps I had on hand and a few from Mom's pile and looked to see what would be possible. I found a Merry Christmas border and decided I should work around that. I added fabric to each end to make it long enough to fit where I thought it would best be seen. I found the bottom white piece which was tall enough to fill in between the greeting and the edge of the skirt though I had to add to each end to make it wide enough. I positioned the white piece where I wanted it and then the strip with Merry Christmas so that it was even from side to side upside down over it. I stitched both down to the skirt using white thread on the top and a red in the bottom so it would blend with the red on the back. I ironed the greeting over and then started finding more strips to add above. Most of these were already strips so I did not have to cut too much fabric. I kept adding strips until I was pass the middle and then used shorter pieces to do each side of the back. Once finished I stitched from the back really close to the stitched edge to secure all the ends down. Next, I trimmed between the line of stitching and the edge of the bottom layer so the stitched edge of the skirt was all that showed. Then, it was a matter of figuring how I would finish the two edges at the back and the circle for the trunk of the tree. After a bit of mucking in m supplies I decided to use black seam binding with a decorative stitch in red to finish off those edges. It worked really well and made a very cool looking tree skirt. Glad to have made this piece usable again!! Therese
