Tree Skirt in a Day

The Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, my daughter-in-law texted me a photo showing they had put up their Christmas tree. She add the tongue-in-cheek remark that the tree still needed a homemade tree skirt. Apparently I had forgotten her request from last year. Well I certainly could not create anything heirloom quality between now and Christmas, but surely I could whip out a quick one. When she comes for the holidays I will grill her on what specific she had in mind for a fancier one. Quilted? Ruffled? Circular that lies flat? Color preferences?

I had made a simple drawstring tree skirt for our own home out of some leftover decorator fabric from IKEA and described it in my post for December 3, 2014. It was single layer and made from one yard of 54" wide fabric that I configured to be 18" wide and 108" long.  I rummaged through my stash and selected four yards of a Christmas print of all package bows that I had set aside for a backing for that nebulous "something" on that indeterminate "someday". I decided to use it for the tree skirt as a double thickness rectangle ½WOF (~23") wide by 144" long.

I thought some red ball fringe around the lower outer edge would spice it up. So I dove into my plastic storage boxes and dug out some that I knew I had. But I only had five times 18", roughly 90+ inches in yardage. Hmmm. I could make that tree skirt 90" long perhaps to accommodate the length of red trim I had. Then I looked more closely at my ball fringe. I had snipped off most of the balls, probably for some noses or pom-poms on something. Better try Plan B. That meant dashing out to the local fabric store, on the Saturday afternoon of the biggest holiday shopping weekend of the year, for some red ball fringe, the odds of which being in stock were very slim indeed. My husband was up for an adventure though, so he said let's go, even if it meant fighting traffic and braving the crowds.

Of course at my local fabric store there was no red ball fringe, only pink, and it was $12 a yard! No way even if the fabric was from my stash and free – sort of – was I going to spend nearly $50 on the wrong color ball fringe! I started exploring other trim types and also learned decorator trims were 30% off. I liked this red and gold string fringe, much less expensive at $5 a yard, and I liked it better. Sigh. They only had three yards in stock, but the sister store, 11 miles away, had 6 yards in stock. I stood in the cutting line and waited and waited to get the three yards they did have. It was 30% off and I did get 50% off on top of the 30% off for the last yard that was end of bolt. Then my husband and I drove on over to the sister store to get another yard.

My husband dropped me off in front of the second store and I ran in immediately and went directly to pull a tab for my place in line at the cutting table. I pulled "00" which I have never ever done before. Sometimes the quirkiest things amuse me and getting a "00" was one of those things, so I documented the incident with a photo. I then found the fringe I wanted from the shelves and went back to the cutting table. They were on "98" so the wait was short.

Having the four yards be in two separated lengths was no problem since I would be enclosing the upper edge in a seam and the joint would not be visible. I did need to be careful to orient the fringe with the same side showing in the two lengths. One side had a bit more gold peeking out at the upper edge.

I sewed the fringe along one selvage edge. Then I layered the second selvage edge over that right sides together, encasing the fringe.

I turned the four yard long tube right side out and pressed a sharp crease at the upper edge opposite the exposed fringe. Instead of marking 1.5" and 2.5" lines from the upper edges for a casing, I pressed masking tape to my sewing machine cabinet as a guide for the two parallel stitching lines.

After stitching the casing I top-stitch closed the short ends of the rectangle. I threaded cording through the casing and here is the completed tree skirt, ready to be gathered and wrapped around the trunk of the tree.

I did sew through the cording and casing in the very center so the cording would not slip out.

I had to try out if my guessed measurements would work out, so here is the tree skirt modeled temporarily by my Christmas tree. My tree is still undecorated. I was busy making a tree skirt instead.

The tree skirt folded up nice and flat, ready to be mailed off on Monday. Mission accomplished all within a day. But how much time did it really take me?

It took me less than two hours to sew. But I am choosing to mention but not count 

• the time to sort through my stash and select this Christmas bow fabric
• the time expended to search in my closet to find and assess the inadequate ball fringe
• the travel time to, between, and back from the two stores to buy the fringe I did use
• the time of shopping distraction within the first store
• the time to put away everything in my closet I'd removed to find the red ball fringe
• my time to write this post.

Everything beyond the sewing was all a happy Christmas adventure. Oh, and the sewing was happy, too! Don't you just love the feeling of a project completed? My daughter-in-law texted me that the tree skirt arrived today, Wednesday, so I can publish this post. Conveniently, it is timed right to link up with Let's Bee Social #205.