How to make: Felt Leaf Christmas Tree Skirt

Alright, so I don't have a Christmas Tree skirt.  In fact, I've NEVER had a Christmas tree skirt, even when I was growing up.  I guess this means that my Mom is really the one who never had a Christmas Tree skirt. (HI mom!)  Anyway, we basically just always took a festive tablecloth or sheet and bunched it under the tree.  Kind of like this!

This is in my apartment right now.  Yes, I have two Christmas trees.

Well, I decided that I should probably make one, since it's relatively simple, and I've always wanted to!

I decided #1 to make it green, and then secondly to do a leaf pattern.  Now, this may not be Christmasy to you guys, but I'm really obsessed with leaves and thought it would be cute!

Gather your tools:

1 yard of dark green felt for the main body of the skirt.

¼ yard of complementing lighter green felt.

Green thread

Fabric scissors or Rotary cutter

To begin, take your big piece of felt and cut it into a circle.  You can do this by folding it and cutting off the corners, refolding it in a different way, and cutting it again!  I repeated this again and again until I had achieved a nice circle.  

Then, I set that aside and started working on the complementary felt, which will be the leaves.  I cut a patter of the leaf out of a piece of plastic.

Lay the stencil down and cut out the leaves!  Keep cutting until you've got a NIIIIICE big bunch of them.

Alright, now is time to cut the hole in the middle of the skirt, where the tree trunk will go.  Begin by taking some sort of circular object in your house and mark the place where we should cut.  This box of mints works great!!

Cut a straight line up to that circle, and cut the circle out of the felt.  Something like this:

Now grab all those leaves you cut out:

Start laying down those leaves in a semi-random fashion.

Start pinning those down.

Grab your green thread and your sewing machine:

I really debated with myself how I'd sew this.  On one hand, I could sew a wide swath with curlicues that would get all the leaves at once.  That'd be fast and take less thread, but then it would look messy.  I decided to sew each leaf down individually, which really looked great.  Now, each leaf looks as if we are seeing the veins of the leaves.

And one good thing to do is to NOT run out of thread before you finish.  WHOOPSIES!  I just happened to have this green thread, and there was not much on this spool.  I think I may have inherited this from someone, because the spool looks vintage.

Here's how the leaves looked as I worked.  I didn't cut the thread in between leaves, because I was trying to   use the least amount of thread possible.  Plus, it went faster this way.  When you're all done, trim the thread between the leaves.

The finished product! (except a few leaves on the side, because I have to get more thread!)

It's sooo cute, isn't it?

I am loving it!

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