It's about that time where we're all doing our holiday decor and gifting plans in a row. I was thinking about it and I have been a quilter for 30 years and I’ve never made a tree skirt! I was excited by the opportunity to make one using the AccuQuilt circle dies as ornaments.

Materials:

• Background Fabric (1 ⅓ yards)
• Binding Fabric (½ yard) - cut 2” strips on the BIAS.
• Miscellaneous Christmas scraps
• AccuQuilt GO! Circle Dies (there's a circle bundle of all the dies I used)
  • I used the GO! Circle-2", 3", 5" (55012) for the bigger circle backgrounds and GO! Circle-½", ¾", 1", 1 ¼" (55484) and GO! Circle-1 ½", 1 ¾", 2 ¼", 2 ½" (55155) for the detail circles
  • Remember, AccuQuilt has embroidery in three different stitches (blanket, straight and motif) for all sized circles!
• 1 yard fusible web

I started by applying fusible web to all my Christmas fabrics. Then I used my circle dies to cut out some big circles and a bunch of smaller circles. I cut the large ones first and then with the scraps I cut the itty bitty circles that I later used to decorate the large circles.

Next, I drew two large circles on my background fabric. One at three inches from the center point and one at 20 inches from the center point. To do this I folded the fabric into a quarter and then used a ruler to mark points at three inches from the center and 20 inches from the center. I then pinned next to the lines (first photo) and sewed on the line on my machine WITHOUT thread in the top and bottom (second photo) which essentially perforates the fabric so you have an outside line. This helps for knowing how far out to place ornaments and where to apply the binding.

Make sure to decide where you will cut your tree skirt and leave a space to do so. I used one of the lines I had ironed when I made the circle into quarters.

Once this has been done, it’s time to start placing ornaments. I knew I wanted to make a pine bough in the middle so I placed them in a circle that stopped about six inches from the edge. Then I had fun decorating the big circles with little circles. I tried to make each one a little different.

Once all the circles were placed I ironed them down following my fusible’s directions. Then I layered the quilt. For each ornament I used a contrasting colored thread to stitch down the large outer circle and add detail to stitch down the small circles. This reminds me of the old fashioned Christmas ornaments with all the fine gold detail.

Next, I quilted the pine bough in the center of the tree skirt. The first picture shows a single thickness of thread next to a double thickness. I decided I really wanted my pine bough to show so I used a double thickness. I drew another circle at 12 inches so I had a line to stitch on using a plate. Then I stitched the pine bough.

Once the bough was stitched I added stipple quilting on all the background areas.

Ornaments need to be hanging from the bough so I needed to figure out how to add the hanging strings. I decided to use a triple stitch on my machine with a thirty weight cotton thread.

Next I cut out the inner circle and outer circle on my previously perforated lines. Then I cut on the straight line so my tree skirt could go around the tree.

I then applied the bias binding to the edges and turned it to the back of the tree skirt and hand stitch. Here's a great tutorial on bias binding!