The Christmas tree is dressed!

The Christmas tree finally has it's skirt! Yay!

I started collecting fabric for the tree skirt in October, with plan of making a modern tree skirt that wasn't too Christmasy.  My original plan was to use green, gold and cream fabrics only, but I couldn't find enough modern looking fabric with metallic gold, so I resorted to adding in a couple red fabrics.  The skirt ended up being a little more Christmasy than I had originally intended, but I like it. 

I made up the pattern as I went, finding some inspiration from Pinterest, of course.  I had a few different pattern ideas in mind, but in the end I really wanted to involve triangle piecing.  I used 6 different fabric and had 1/2 yard of all of them except one.  I used just about every inch of each fabric, and I have to say I am pretty proud of my fabric amount guessing.

To make the blocks in the middle of the quilt, I used a technique I learned from the Missouri Star Quilting Company video here.  It's a really quick and simple way to make half square triangles, without have to cut out each triangle shape. 

Once I had all my squares made and sewn together, I knew I needed to make the skirt a little bigger, so I decided to add on two different boarders.  I actually think the boarders really help to make the quilt, they seemed pull the whole design together quite nicely.

I used the last pieces of one of the read prints as the binding.  I used straight of grain binding for the whole things, which I was a little worried about for the center circle, but I think it turned out pretty good.  I decided not to add any ties to the skirt, to make it easier to remove the skirt when watering the tree.

Overall, I am really pleased with how it turned out, even if it ended up being a little more Christmasy then I originally planed.

Growing up, we always had real trees, and I remember my mom always saying she wished we could have a fake tree because real trees were a lot of work and really messy.  I never really believed her, but after just a couple weeks of having this real tree, I am seriously contemplating buying a fake tree for next year.  Seriously, Christmas trees are messy! It's fighting a loosing battle sweeping up the needles that fall all day, every day.  I think we will be finding needles around the living room for months to come after Christmas.  Oh well, at least it smells nice.