Handmade dresses and skirts transformed into a Christmas tree skirt full of memories.
I had a client reach out to me with this very special project. She had a grandmother who was a talented seamstress. This grandmother made all her clothing with great skill. After her passing, my client acquired her grandmother’s garments. The memories were too precious to simply donate the clothing, so she approached me with the idea to use the garments in a Christmas tree skirt.
After selecting dresses and skirts that had enough fabric to work for the project, it was time to cut out the wedge shaped pieces. I wanted to preserve any trim and buttons from the clothing to use in the tree skirt as a reminder of the little details the grandmother used. Since there was a variety of fabric types and colors, I decided to alternate each clothing piece with a neutral cream snowflake fabric. This helped bring some cohesiveness to the tree skirt.
Now the fun part…sewing all the wedges together!
To give the tree skirt more structure, I treated it more like a quilt. A Christmas green floral fabric was used as the backing material and a quilt sandwich was made using cotton batting in between the layers. To keep the clothing fabric in the forefront of the design, I decided to stitch in the seams of the wedges for the quilting as opposed to a busier quilting pattern.
After trimming the edges, it was time to bind the quilted tree skirt. I used a speckled, metallic dark green fabric for the binding which anchored the front of the tree skirt and coordinated with the fabric on the back. I extended the binding into ties at the inner opening of the tree skirt.
Attaching binding to back of skirt 
Getting ready to sew onto the front of the skirt 
Binding being made into ties
I was thrilled to be able to make three of these skirts for this wonderful family. I am honored to have been asked to make such a treasured heirloom. I hope they enjoy many Christmas holidays with these memory tree skirts.
Made Sew Happy 