Happy Cyber Monday, all. Personally, I don’t get it. But, it seems to be a popular idea. I’ve never found enough of a savings on the stuff I buy to make the effort worthwhile. We don’t even leave home on Black Friday or whatever-nickname Saturday. Not worth it. The traffic alone would turn me into a screaming idiot.
I stayed home a sewed. The Holiday Quilt that Rob asked for is completed. We bought the binding on Weds and I bound it Thursday, after the dishes were done and finished the hand work before the sun came up on Friday. Then, I turned my attentions to the tree skirt.
I finished the last stitch in it yesterday. I kinda went overboard on the backing. I saved about $6 and spent about 15 hours to make up for it. Not a good trade off. My mistake was not buying enough backing fabric. I had half as much as I needed, so I had to get creative with how I used it.
First, the front:
But, that was the easy part. You’ve already seen it. It was all assembled.
The back is where I really got creative.
First, I basted the top to the batting, using the basting as marking lines that I could see from the back. Then, I cut all those triangles of backing fabric with the reindeer running in the same direction. I layed them on the backing so that the sides extended beyond my marked basting lines and quilted from the top to secure them to the skirt. Next, I hand appliqued the red strips to cover the raw edges. The red on the front is not the same red fabric as the back. If I’d had twice as much backing fabric, I wouldn’t have needed the red strips, or the hand work they took to sew on. And, I wouldn’t have been as happy with the skirt as I am.
I created a binding that would give me one fabric on the top and a different one on the back. Okay, so note that I’m making up instructions as I go. There wasn’t even a plan for this to be reversible.
There was WAYYYY too much hand sewing on this little project. In retrospect, I could have done this much easier. But, what I ended up with is a completely reversible tree skirt that is just as pretty from the top as it is from the back.
Sydney got the tree decorated yesterday, just as I was putting the last stitches into the skirt, so she and I layed in the floor and put the skirt around the tree.
Our old skirt is now under her tree; smaller skirt, smaller tree.
The old one is the first quilted thing I ever made. I didn’t even know it was quilting. But, it was a quilt as you go technique where you layed a diamond in the center of a larger diamond and sewed strips around, log cabin fashion, then joined the diamonds together and bound it. I used commercial binding tape and it’s two different colors. Oh, how far I’ve come since the early 90’s. Burgundy at the beginning, fire engine red at the end…not one color on each side of the quilt.
Everybody have a great Monday. I’m actually looking forward to getting back to work. They don’t make me do dishes there.
Lane
3 comments:
Love the skirts. The star one still looks pretty. I think I bought that diamond tree skirt pattern way back then sort of log cabin kind of thing. Won't get to it this year but hopefully next. I had forgotten about it.
I am so impressed with you -- brand new tree skirt with no pattern and improvised backing, and it's finished and under the tree in time for the first Sunday of Advent! I'm hoping to make a new tree skirt this year, too. Ah, if wishes were fishes, there would be fishes under my Christmas tree and my house would be stinky. Hmmm...
Beautiful tree skirt! Don't you just love to see where your quilting began and marvel at where it has been elevated to? I really treasure my first few projects for that reason alone.
Post a Comment