Part 3; Tree skirt

I'm also working on a new tree skirt for the kid's/family tree. I made the original one 10 years ago, with fabric from a failed project. It was cute, and worked fine for a long time. But with a new tree the old skirt looked too small.

 I bought these beautiful, elegant looking reindeer from my favorite embroidery site a few years ago, and around Thanksgiving an idea bubbled forth. Red and white blocks w/embroidered reindeer in alternating red and white with silver and pewter accents (the family room colors are red/white/silver.)  I stayed up till almost midnight working on my pattern, I put that math degree of mine to good use.

I now had a reason to hit JoAnn's Black Friday sales, but since all I was going for was some fabric and some thread, I waited until Saturday to go-MUCH calmer and easier.  I embroidered my first reindeer, red on a white background, and I did a double take.  You can be the judge, but to me, it looked too intense.  More like a reindeer of the Apocalypse, than one of Santa's joyful helpers.


It's not nearly as intense as it looked under my lamp, but still.


I settled on a grey on white instead, it's a bit more subtle.  And I love how it looks next to the white on red blocks.

The next difficulty was the center medallion, it was to be an 8-pointed star made up of diamonds.  I had never before attempted cutting out or sewing diamonds, let alone setting my squares into a series of diamonds.  Thank goodness I've got a pretty decent sewing/quilting library (thanks mom) and some mat board to make a template.  It was much simpler than I was anticipating, yay.

I still need to back it and bind it, possibly quilt it, but that's all fairly simple stuff.  I can't wait to get it under the tree!