Tree Skirt Up!

Good golly...has it been over a YEAR since I've posted here in blogland?  Yes, indeed-y it has...yikes!  But today I've got a project (or 3) that merits an honest-to-goodness blog post.

A few weeks ago, Rachel of Stitched in Color announced that she was hosting a Holiday Challenge from Sew Love Fabrics featuring fabrics from Josephine Kimberling's uber-cute Hip Holiday line. 

 

Challenge, you say?  With the cutest Christmas fabric possibly ever, you say?  Well, I think the answer is YES!  The deal is that Rachel posts about a stack of fabric and you tell her what you would do with it if it were yours.  She picks three winners...they get the fabric and are tasked to create the project they proposed.  Fun, right?  The best part is that this time around she picked me!

I said that I'd love to make a new Christmas tree skirt and that this stack of fabric was perfect.  We've been in the market for a new one for, oh, 5 or 6 years...but it's just one of those projects that I keep saying "I can just MAKE one"...and then other things come up and I never get to it and we're still using the sad, sad old one.  Truth be told I kind of love the old one.  It's not my style or anything I'd pick, but Paul's Aunt Maggie made it for us shortly after we got married.  Awwww, right?  She's an amazing quilter/seamstress/crafter and I just felt so grateful (and still do!) that she spent time making that for us.  We've used it every year since, but it has seen better days and it's time to rejuvenate the bottom of the tree...lest she go nekkid and I'm not into that ;)

I received my gorgeous stack of 7 fat quarters from Ruth at Sew Love Fabrics, and I quickly got down to business because I had already picked out my tree skirt pattern.  It's from the new book Simply Modern Christmas: Fresh Quilting Patterns for the Holidays (fun book if you're looking for holiday projects!).  Then I got cold feet and started to panic that I may have bitten off a little more than I could chew.  But, it turns out I was up for the challenge and deadlines are just what I need to pull it off.  Here's our new tree skirt:

 

 

Isn't it just de-lovely?  I am over.the.moon for it!  I used 3 of the Hip Holiday fabrics (Star Bursts in green, Ornament Glam in red, and Reindeer Stroll in green) and mixed in a few of my own.  I had thought I would just use the other 4 fat quarters on the back of the tree skirt, but then I just couldn't cover up the cuteness.  I mean, have you see the Tree Shopping print?

 

I ended up combining a few of my fave older Christmas prints for the back, which I think turned out fabulous:

 

 

I decided that I really needed to make some other things to go along with the tree skirt so that each of the fabrics could be featured prominently.  So, the tree skirt has a few friends... an adorable drawstring bag using the Tree Shopping and the Hip Forest in red prints on the outside:

 

 

And Hip Forest in white for the lining:

 

 

 

I also made 2 Finnish Star ornaments with the last fat quarter, Start Bursts in white:

 

 

This challenge was a lot of fun and I'm so glad Rachel chose me to be a part of it - thanks, Rachel!