Last year Quilting Treasures came out with a line of GWTW fabric. I knew I had to make something for her, but what? I got on this website of sewing patterns, it's where I go when I need inspiration for a new craft. Every pattern maker I've ever heard of, and some I haven't, are on this site. It was here I found this pattern and decided to make her a Christmas Tree Skirt.
The company kept pushing back the release date of the fabric, I originally wanted to make it a Christmas present for her. The fabric was pushed back from Decemember to January. When it was finally released, I started looking around, going to my normal fabric shops, and coming up empty. One store had had it in stock, but it sold out immediately. I found that to be a common problem. As with most specialty fabrics, they are often difficult to find and pretty expensive, especially when ordered online.
I finally found three different online stores with the different fabrics I needed to make the tree skirt. I ordered a couple yards here, a couple yards there, until I had what I needed.
Originally, the tree skirt pattern called for two fabrics for the pie piece shaped sections on the front of the skirt and another for the back. But with all the beautiful GWTW fabric available, I had to do more than that. There are 8 pieces on the front, so I bought 4 coordinating fabrics for the front and back.
My apartment is very small and the biggest problem I have is finding enough room to spread out the fabric to cut it and then piece it together properly. This makes it much more difficult to make large projects than it should be.
I have a large cardboard measuring/cutting board that I laid out on my queen sized bed to piece together the pieces for the front.
When I went looking for the trim, I knew I wanted something that complimented the fabric, but I didn't want anything glittery or tacky. I absolutely loved this one! It is a solid brown, a velvet ribbon with thin brown cord woven around it in a pretty design.
I needed 11 1/4 yards for the tree skirt. They didn't have that much on the big "cut-to-sell" spool, but they did have six individual spools of 4 feet of trim. I ended up buying those six spools and then getting another 5 yards off the big spool and it was just enough.
This trim was more difficult to work with than I imagined. The cords would fray quickly when cut, so I had to act fast and sew the edges before they had a chance to fray.
This is the back to of the skirt. I loved this fabric and thought it would work best to compliment all the other fabrics.
And here is the finished product.
It is huge! I am really happy with how it turned out.
And, even more importantly, Lori loved it!
I'm interested in finding a small Gone With the Wind Christmas tree skirt. About 16 inches.
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