Skirting the Tree

We interrupt my (lately) silent blog to bring you a finish! What do you get when you pair cool Christmas fabrics with a giant swoon block? A glorious tree skirt.

I was drawn to a bright red with icy blue palette. The woodgrain grounds everything and the low volume background ensures that the overall effect is soft. My only regret is that I used too many grayish background fabrics. The gray was so close to the blues I used that you lose the overall swoon effect. It is so hard to get soft colors to contrast the right way!

I made a 2X swoon block and then cut out the center.

The bias binding went all around the quilt and then I added ties so it would close around the tree.

Emboldened after seeing Sarah's (Stitching and bacon) dogwood quilting up close, I went for it. If she can do it surely I can too. It was fun and pretty easy given I already had a grid for reference:

I think the dogwod quilting is Christmas-esque without being too in your face.

 Iwanted a reversible tree skirt so I did a fun design on the back using some leftover HSTs from the construction of the front. It is decidedly bolder and frankly, looks better under the tree...go figure.

The busy design also hides all those pesky pine needles better. Sorry my grass is so brown.

Here are some pics in situ. It was early morning and my front window faces the sun. So get ready to deal with the glare.