Mantequilla Baby: Put a Skirt Around My Christmas Tree!!

Hey y'all! It's been a crazy few weeks. I've been working mad hours lately, having minimal time for crafting. But, I managed to get this done, and I love it. I can't wait to get my first real big-girl tree to put it around!!

My Hexie Tree Skirt!

The hardest part of this was figuring out the measurements. I like to do my patterns on graph paper, I'm old-school like that. It's a little hard to see. But, you have to cut each piece of fabric into a triangle. If you have a triangle shape form, your angles will be 30°, 60°, and 90°. I found it easiest to trace it on to a piece of poster board, and then I could cut my fabric off that pattern.

The measurements of each triangle are: 24" x 13.86" x 27.7" - that's why it's easiest to measure out your angles. If you're not good at math... you might have to rewind your brain to high-school geometry. I just knew that I wanted my final measurements to be 48" across. That's how I got the 24". Don't get crazy worrying about the math... there's lots of websites that will calculate lengths of sides for you, you just have to plug a couple numbers in.

So obviously the hardest part of any project is to pick out your fabric. For the tree skirt you will need:

6 different matching fabrics for your top pieces (I wish I could tell you how much you will need of each. I always just buy a yard of everything, so it's hard to estimate. You want these pieces to be at least 14" wide, so a 1/4 yard wouldn't work, but a 1/2 yard would, or anything bigger than that.
Fabric for your binding (probably 3/4 yard or more, depending on how wide you want it)
Backing fabric - because the final size is 48" around, you'll need 2 yards to piece it all together
Matching ribbon - I used a 1" width, but you could go wider. If you're buying by the yard, you'll just need about 1 yard.

If you've sewn/quilted before, the rest is pretty self explanatory... but in summary:

Cut out all your triangles
Sew them together with a quarter inch seam (don't worry about the centers, since you'll be cutting them out for a hole for your tree)
You want to make sure to leave one side open, which will go in the back of the tree, as you can see in the final product pictures. It may seem as though your sides don't match up on your open seam, but don't worry, once you cut out the center and add the binding up the side, it will be just right.
Make your backing piece
Make your quilting sandwich, putting your backing fabric right-side down, then your batting, then your top. Pin it all over to keep all the pieces in place.
Quilt it together. You can use a walking foot if you have one. I don't, and it manages to come out okay.
Once you have the whole thing quilted, find something round and the right size for your opening in the center. Trace it, and cut it out. At this point, I zig-zag stitched around the center and just left it like that.

As you can see, I quilted a quarter inch off of each seam.

Next you'll want to add on your binding. Because of the fabric I chose, with the letters, I made my own double-fold bias tape. There's lots of different ways to do bindings. If you don't know how, I put a couple links at the bottom. For this, I chose to run the binding all the way up the opening but I skipped the round opening because I didn't like the way the fabric got kind of bunched up around the circle.

The final step is totally optional. But I think it adds a nice touch. Cut your ribbon to a length long enough to be tied into a pretty bow. You'll want 4 equal lengths. Pin your ribbon onto the edges of your opening, spaced as you wish.
Here, I sewed the ribbon on.