Hey, y’all! It’s my stop in the Christmas in July Blog Hop, hosted by Siobhan at CDM365 Studios! Today I want to share a project that I worked on earlier this year for AccuQuilt! Did you see my appearance on the new product release this week? I was the designer for the Christmas Tree Skirts they shared in the video. I get so excited about those video appearances, even after doing it a few times. That’s why I always have crazy eyes and a huge smile.
Anyway. AccuQuilt reached out to me last year and asked if I would make four Christmas tree skirts with a soon-to-be-released die. Of course, I said yes. I love having the newest dies, and I also love it when they want me to make multiples of one project. I get to really sink my teeth into the new die, and get to know it. I can tell you – I love the new Christmas tree skirt die a ton.
The requests I received were to make one with traditional colors, one with mid-mod colors, one with novelty prints, one scrappy and one appliqué. I combined the mid-mod colors with the appliqué, and used the new ornament die to embellish that one.
My friends at Andover were kind enough to provide fabric for me to make the tree skirts. They have three great Christmas collections this season, and their Century Solids are some of my favorite solids to work with.
I used the Dresden Plate BOB for this one, and used up a bunch of the scraps I generated to make the little dresden in the center.
First off, make sure you take a look at the AccuQuilt release video. Pam and Erica share a brilliant fabric folding technique to minimize waste. I definitely wish I had thought of that. My instructions call for cutting large rectangles, which is not as efficient, but it does give me some big scraps that I can use later, or use to cut ornament shapes.
Since I already wrote patterns that you can get for free on the AccuQuilt website, I’m going to give you some pointers here.
This was the first time I have used a die incorrectly and noticed a difference. What do I mean? You know how Pam is always talking about finding the straight grain and cutting the fabric that way? Well, I don’t do that. Like, never. I mostly cut small shapes, so the fabric doesn’t have a chance to get distorted going through the wrong way. With this die, it makes a big difference. I discovered this by using fat quarters in the die. Fat quarters aren’t long enough to cover the blade on the straight grain, so I just did it the other way. When fat quarters were all that I used, that wasn’t a problem. Everything stretched the same way. But, when I mixed fat quarters and yardage, I noticed a pretty substantial difference.
The pieces cut with fabric on the cross-grain are longer, by about 1/8″. The way I compensated for that was to pin the pieces together, and always sew with the longer ones on the bottom. The feed dogs helped ease in that little bit of fullness. I would definitely recommend using yardage rather than fat quarters for this project, but I suspect some of you have awesome fat quarter bundles just waiting for a home. Use them! Just be aware that you will need to compensate for that stretch.
If your fullness is noticeable, with little puckers, use a fluffy batting. Fluffy batting can hide a multitude of sins. I’m not a big fan of “it will quilt out”, but if you use your tools, you can quilt a lot of things out.
Do you have a longarm quilting machine? I was delighted to be able to load two skirts at once and quilt them together.
I also have to take a moment to brag about my friend Marisa. She made a skirt using this die! Check out her Instagram post!
Oh, and did you notice that all of my skirts have the seam in the middle-ish of one of the blades? I did that intentionally. In order for the circle to be flat, I had to have it stitched together completely. I didn’t cut along a seam line, because I didn’t want the additional bulk where I was binding. It would probably be fine, but when I’m working I often get one idea and stick with it until I’m done. I don’t process further ideas until later. It’s a flaw, but it is how I work.
Okay. I’m off to look for a Florida Christmas fabric collection to make a tree skirt for the condo. I bet I can find flamingoes in Santa hats. Or, I might see how I can piece some little squares into the wedges. There are so many creative possibilities with this die!
Please check out my fellow bloggers! And huge Thanks to Siobhan for putting the Christmas in July Blog Hop together and inviting me to play!
July 10th- Siobhan of www.cdm365studios.com
July 11th- Joise of www.hiddenstitches.com guest blogging on www.cdm365studios.com
July 12th- Lissa of www.lovinglylissa.com
July 13th- Jen of www.dizzyquilter.com
July 14th- Swan of www.swanamity.com/blog
July 17th- Emily of thedarlingdogwood.blogspot.com/
July 18th- Siobhan of www.cdm365studios.com
Want more holiday ideas? Check out my 12 Months of Christmas posts.
Wow, you must have mastered that die making so many, and being willing to make more. They are all beautiful.
Aww, Jen – you had me at Oscar! What fun projects. I’d be hard pressed to pick a favorite but I just LOVE the idea of flamingos with Santa hats! I hope you find that fabric and make it. {{Hugs}} ~smile~ Roseanne