Christmas in July

 

Fall of 2015 I saw a picture of "quilted" Christmas trees on Craftsy.  I saved the project and the fabric requirements.  The instructions list a youtube video that is no longer available.  With the information I had, I figured out how to make these trees.

Sometime around the time that I saw the idea on Craftsy, I bought the styrofoam trees with the intention of making it.  I bought fabric for it last year but still didn't get them made for Christmas.  I've had it on my "to do" list all month.  My reasoning is that I have more time now than I will in November.

Surprisingly, It took me about 5-6 hours to make these two trees.  I didn't think it would take so long.  The taller tree has a 4" base and is 12" tall.  The smaller tree has a 3-1/2" base and is 9" tall.

The trees are made with 2-1/2" squares of fabric that are folded in half diagonally, pressed and then folded in half again and pressed, making a smaller triangle.  I'm guessing the larger tree has ~150 squares.

On the taller tree I cut three strips of fabric from the jelly roll that measured 2-1/2 x 7 in.  I stretched them across the bottom and pinned them to the tree.  The above picture show the base fabric and the first row of triangle squares pinned.  You can see that I overlapped the corners slightly.

I then went around the base and put another row at the same height but the points were between the first row I pinned.  This made it fuller on the bottom row.  I used 14 squares total on the bottom row.  I then staggered them going up the tree. I also used a 2-1/2" square at the top of the tree to cover it.

You can see a little more progress on the rows.

I was jazzed to finish the first tree.  I entertained stopping and doing the smaller one another time but I decided if I waited I probably wouldn't get it made.  So glad I kept on working.