and well worth the wait

Finished at last! My Christmas tree skirt, begun at least 22 years ago (or was it 30?) and moved at least 3 times when I doubted I would ever finish it, is 100% complete. Done, done, done. I hate to pack it away with the Christmas decorations. I pulled it out about a year ago and began to piece it using what I dimly remembered from a long-ago class. They handed me a pile of pre-cut batting wedges, told me to select a variety of Christmas prints and showed me how to tear my fabric into strips 1 to 2" wide. Yes, tear. This must have pre-dated rotary cutters. The batting sections had a line drawn across them at an angle. I guess I should have taken a picture of one before they were all covered. Oh, well. The narrow end was cut with an arc and the wide end was cut with a rounded V shape so that when they were put together they formed a round shape with a hole at the center and a widely scalloped outer edge. Any written instructions I received were long gone, so once I finished piecing ala foundation piecing (I remembered that part of the class), I took my pieces to Muriel at Associated Sewing for advice. She suggested putting piping between the sections because the strips had been sewn on in a random order and looked odd when they were joined directly. It looked much better with the piping. Then we decided to finish the outer edges with lace. Next I had to figure out how to put a backing on. I probably could have gotten by without it, but thought it would look more finished and last longer. I found a nice piece at Jo-Ann's on sale and struggled for awhile with how to cut such a large piece. In fact it languished in my WIP pile for a few months until Christmas was upon us and I decided I was determined to use it. It dawned on me to fold it in fourths and lay the skirt, likewise folded, on top to use as a template. Then I attached it using the envelope method (sew rs tog, turn). At this point it was ready to go under the tree for this year. I hadn't figured out how to finish the exposed edges (where I left it open for ease in putting it under the tree. Back to Muriel I went and we decided to use double-fold binding to cover the edges. Now I have to stop admiring it and move on to another project.