CHRISTMAS TREE SKIRT

A little birdie dropped a hint last Christmas that she hoped Santa would bring her a Christmas tree skirt.  Unfortunately, when the hint was shared, their tree was already up and time just flat ran out for me to create something.   So, Santa filed that hint away for this Christmas.   And now, I can gift it early to make sure it's ready for this holiday season.

I found a cute neutral cotton fabric for the skirt itself and decided to give it a splash of  color by using red seam binding to finish the top and bottom edges, as well as red felt poinsettia flowers on the front of the skirt.

If you've never made a tree skirt, it's so simple.  Let me share some of the tips and tricks.  First, once you find your fabric (you'll need about 1 ½ yards since most holiday cottons are about 45" - 54" wide) you'll fold it in half and then in half again to make a square.  You'll have a bit leftover which you can use to make the ties for the back of the skirt, and place the rest in your remnant bin for another project!

I made 3 sets of ties

The circumference of the skirt is totally up to you.  I chose to make mine pretty large since my daughter and her husband have a really tall tree.   What that meant was I measured 26" down the fold and 26" down the opposite raw edge of my square and continued marking 26" from my corner point to make the "arc" for my cut line (there are some really good You Tube videos if you'd like an actual visual tutorial on the process, just google Christmas tree skirt).   It will also show you how to cut the circle for the tree base and create a center back seam.

To finish the center back seam, I used a simple rolled edge hem....and made ties from the same fabric to tie it together at the back of the tree.  

The poinsettias are made from red felt....frankly, this was just eyeballing and cutting three different size petals and hot gluing them to a felt circle.  For the two larger petals I used a total of 10; first I glued down 5 petals, then went back around adding the other 5 in the voids created in the first row of petals. The smallest petals I only used a total of 5.  To create the center, I placed a dollop of fabric glue and sprinkled gold glitter on top.

I made a total of 5 poinsettas; 2 large, 2 medium and 1 small.  Once I had placed them on the skirt (about 8 different ways before I made my decision), I hand sewed them into place.

I think now that I've made this one for my daughter....I need to make myself one! I have this cheapy red felt skirt I bought years ago and every year when I get ready to put the tree up, I vow I'm going to make myself a one-of-a-kind skirt to replace the generic one I have.  Who knows, maybe it will be this year?