A tree skirt for GC

For as long as I have known her, my mother-in-law has mentioned wanting a tree skirt. Since I never know what to buy her I decided to make her one this year.  She mentioned it again about two weeks ago and I thought, "wait, I know how to quilt! What a perfect present. I'll make a tree skirt." Then I thought, "oh no, it is almost December. They'll get their tree soon." 

But it just so happened that they were going to visit Jared's sister for a week and wouldn't get back until this week and then get their tree. Most of my spare time for the past two weeks has been used to work on this. 

At first I wasn't sure if I liked it, but as so often happens with quilts, by the end I was in love with it!! Each step of the quilting process adds a little something to the quilt. It is a fun hobby. 

Oh, and this happened to be the pattern my MIL had been saving to make herself someday. I didn't know that. I just knew that she had given me the pattern a few years ago. I used a bunch of her old fabric scraps to make the trees, stars, and binding. 

Of course, when I tried to take a picture both boys wanted to sit in the circle. 

Or stand. 

Here is the fabric cut for the trees. It was a lot of little pieces. Cutting them all out took about two hours. The only reason I know this is because Jared was watching  a college football game and I finished by halftime. :) 

Here are the blocks made. We tried putting the red centered stars in the front, but it made it too red. It seemed more balanced with the green centered stars. 

For quilting: I outlined the stars three times to look like they were shining. I outlined the trees once. And I tried swirl quilting for the first time because I thought it would look like snow. 

I worked on the quilting for about a week off and on. The outlining took the longest.   I did the swirls in two evening stretches. 

Jared and I debated the size of the hole for a while. We finally decided on 9" because his parents have a real tree. I couldn't find anything that was a 9" circle around my house. Then I remembered I owned a compass (of course, I'm an engineer!). 

It took me a while to work up the courage to slice the seam and hole. I was sure I would mess up and ruin the whole thing. 

Jared made the scrappy binding for the quilt while I finished quilting it. He also cut out the stars. They weren't on the original pattern, but I thought the trees needed something. I appliquéd them on. 

The binding took about two days to sew on. 

Some closer pictures of the quilting. 

Closer picture of the stars. (Little feet in every picture). 

Two Sets of little feet in this picture. What fun to spin in the middle. 

And here is the back. I sent Jared to the store for either a flannel or something Christmasy.  He brought this back because he knows I love polka dots and his mom loves red. The back ended up being 45" by 45" and a piece of fabric is 40-42". So, I pieced a long strip on the back. I could have cut a little square to fill in the corner, but I made a little four block. I don't like boring backings to quilts. I didn't have time to design something special, but the four patch gives it a little personality. :) 

I washed it before I gave it to her and I used six Shout color catchers. They were pink when I removed them. 

Edit:

The tree skirt is called Starry Forest and is found on Sew Mama Sew. The blogger app won't let me put in links :( 

But I took a screenshot to show you what I changed. 

1. I made my center all white. 

2. I added stars to the trees. 

3. I used various scraps in the trees instead of just two patterns. 

4. I made normal stars that were out of  5-1/2" squares instead of wonky stars. 

5. I used scrappy binding. 

6. I didn't include ties. I didn't see the point. 

7. I angled the corners. Jared's suggestion. It almost gave me a heart attack having to trim off the corners. Once again, I thought for sure I would mess it up.