Wednesday morning: Christmas decorations, continued

Somehow I have stumbled into making tree skirts for my family.  The first one truly was an accident.  I have always enjoyed cross-stitch projects and back in the late 1980s I found a series of patterns based on the poem A Visit from St. Nicholas.  They were so beautiful that I started on them, not having any clear idea of what I'd do with the finished products.  Somewhere along the way the idea of making them into a tree skirt hit.  So I cut each into an oval, edged it with gathered ribbon, mounted it on fabric, attached the panels, backed it with quilted Christmas fabric, edged the whole thing with bigger gathered ribbon, and there it was--an accidental keepsake.

For that first one I used cotton calico fabric that came from a quilter's fabric shop in the midwest, where we were living at the time.  I chose each panel to highlight a color in the cross-stitch piece that would be sewn on it.  The next finished tree skirt had cross-stitch scenes of Winnie the Pooh characters--I found a Christmas/winter based series of patterns featuring WTP since The Nameless One has always loved it.  That skirt was completed while we were living in India, so I used Indian silk for the panels.  Let me tell you--that was a real experience!  Working with silk is a whole new skill that I don't think I quite mastered...

JLO asked for the original tree skirt, so both girls were taken care of, but we were now skirtless.  Between the 2 finished skirts I had done 12 cross-stitch pieces based on The 12 Days of Christmas, but never put them together.  So I bought some wonderful Indian cotton and put it all away--there was no place to get the kind of trims I needed to complete the job (I had brought back the trims for Winnie the Pooh during a winter trip to North America, but didn't have the chance to do that again for this one.)  Now that Christmas is here this year, I had a deadline for completing this one! I'm really pleased that this is the one we are keeping.  The fabric brings back so many wonderful memories of the people and places involved in its purchase, so aside from being something we can enjoy in itself, it also means so much to me.  I love seeing it under the tree every time I go past.

I am already working on the next one--a kind of country one that so far has a country-ish Santa, angel and snowman.  I need to find at least one more thing (the skirts are 8 panels so having fewer than 4 decorated ones doesn't look good--6 is best) that goes well with them.  I brought some more Indian cotton back with me to complete this one.  (I have to say, as much as I loved the incredible silk, I loved the cottons more.  Give me Thai silk and Indian cotton and I am a happy girl.) 

The next project after this last tree skirt is going to be completely different.  I hope to take all of the leftover fabric and make doll clothes.  The girls have many of their toys packed away and among them are Cabbage Patch dolls, so I would like to use this international collection of scraps for the pleasure of future grandkids.  I don't really enjoy small, finicky work, but I don't suppose it will be the first time a grandparent did something they weren't thrilled about for the pleasure of their grandkids!