The first year we were married I didn’t have a tree skirt for our Christmas tree so I bought some fabric from Hobby Lobby, draped it around the bottom of the tree, and called it good. Eleven Christmases later and we were STILL using that same piece of fabric as our makeshift tree skirt.
This year I decided it was time to finally get around to making one. I looked online at several quilted Christmas tree skirt options and finally settled on this star burst tree skirt version.
Isn’t it gorgeous?!
I’ll be honest, I actually don’t love the fabric. I bought this years ago intending to make stockings and a Christmas quilt (which, neither have happened yet) and at the time I had not yet discovered the millions of gorgeous fabric options online. I bought it because that’s what our local fabric store had and I didn’t know where else to go. It’s definitely not anywhere close to what I would pick now, knowing what I know about my fabric buying options.
That being said, I still think it’s pretty! I love the cool starburst effect!
I didn’t want to waste the fabric I already had so I went ahead and made the tree skirt. I knew I’d be doing some new-to-me techniques so I figured using fabric I wasn’t totally in love with was a good idea in case I screwed it up. It was also a really quick project (less than 3 days from start to finish) so if I decide later on down the road to make one with fabric that’s more “me” I won’t feel like I had wasted a ton of time. It was a good practice project and definitely an upgrade from our raggedy fabric piece!
This was my first time making anything circular. This was also my first time using my machine to quilt instead of quilting by hand. Both turned out to be easier than I thought and I’m proud of myself for tackling the challenge!
Here’s a close up of the back to see the quilting. I did a very simple wavy quilting stitch for my first machine-quilted project. It was so easy and WOW sooooooo much faster than doing it by hand!
Since this has curved edges I also had to figure out how to make a bias binding. I’ve done straight grain bindings on all my other quilts so this was brand new. I found this great tutorial that broke down mathematically how to do it and it turned out to be much easier than I expected!
Oh and remember that piece of fabric that has been our tree skirt for 11 years? I used it as my backing for this project – a little of the old to go along with the new.
I am so happy with how it turned out and it looks so fun under the tree! Merry Christmas!
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