muslin tree skirt

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You know how sometimes life gets so absolutely crazy that you just have to turn it all off for a bit and pretend that it isn't there? This tree skirt is an outcome of one of those afternoons. It seriously only took two hours start to finish, and that was even when my kids were home... It definitely wasn't the first project that I should have been working on, but we were setting up our tree and I have wanted a cute tree skirt for, sheesh! years! My mom and sister will vouch for me, and they will be happy to know that there will be no more whining starting now, because I couldn't be more happy with the way it turned out!! I don't even want to cover it up with presents!!

I saw a tree skirt on pinterest (of course...) that I love love loved!! and clicked on it so fast hoping for a tutorial. No tutorial. Just etsy. Priced at $160!!! EEEK! Not happening at this humble home... It is absolutely gorgeous and I was so disappointed!  So I thought to myself, hmmmm. I think I can. And I did! I made it a little bit different because I would feel wicked if I thought I was an idea stealer...

I started with a fun muslin that was thicker. I've been using this specific muslin for a lot of projects because I love it! Besides being thick, you can actually see the threads and it's got rough knobby things on it that make it totally my style.  I layered it with cotton batting and another layer of muslin.  It took me a while to figure out (I know, I'm slow) how to make a circle without a pattern.  Finally I had an Ah Ha! and tied a marker to a piece of yarn, held it in the middle, and traced around.  I decided to make the diameter 44 inches because that was the width of my fabric and I didn't have time to piece anything together.  Remember I didn't have time for this project in the first place... So I cut my yarn to be 22 inches and that worked perfectly.  I cut through all 3 layers at once. (And mom, I even did it with my crappy sewing scissors!!) Then I cut up to the middle so it would have an opening and then just eyeballed a small circle in the middle, about 4 inches diameter, to go around the skinny trunk of my fake tree. :)

Then, with the two muslin pieces together and the batting on the bottom, I sewed all the way around.  If you start at the edge of the little circle in the middle, you can make it all the way around without stopping, leaving one side of the cut into the middle open for turning.  No pictures, sorry.  I got too excited with the progress.
After turning it right side out, I stitched all the way around again, in a quarter inch from the edge, just to hold it well, at the same time, folding under and stitching through the side that we left open for turning.
Then I measured down every three inches and used a decorative stitch on my machine to sew a line all the way around to give it a "quilted" look and hold the batting in place. (You can see this in the pictures above!)

Next was the most time consuming part of the whole project.  I cut a whole bunch of 2 1/2 inch strips that were width of fabric from honestly, I don't know what kind of fabric it is.  It's kind of a mesh but its really soft.  I bought it on a bolt at Walmart this summer. It was with the 'road show' fabrics and a big bolt of it was only $5.  I think that muslin would work really well, maybe better, especially if you used a thinner one.  I used this because it matched the muslin perfectly and I love how the edges fray a ton and the softness of it made it so easy to work with and I had an entire bolt of it and um, ya. So after I cut out a million strips of this fabric, I put the pile of them in my lap and started feeding them through my sewing machine using the gathering stitch.  I didn't bother cutting threads between each piece, I was in a hurry.  I just pulled it through a couple of inches before I started the next one. 

Then I started pulling threads to gather them up.  One piece of fabric made 2 flowers.  As I gathered each strip, I laid it out on the tree skirt.  This is where I totally cheated.  I was going to hand sew all of them on, but at the last minute I thought "Why in the world would I do a ridiculous thing like that??" And I broke out the hot glue gun. It's not like I'm going to be washing it anyway, and if I do, I imagine the glue will hold up much better than MY stitches ever would.  So I glued them on, two flowers at a time.  Half of the strip curls around one direction to make one flower, then you curl the other end the other direction to make the second.  So. Easy.  And the coolest thing? I only had one strip left when it was finished.  This tree skirt and I were clearly M F E O.

(and the best news of all) $25 instead of $160! Merry Christmas to me!!

happy crafting!


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