Sentimental Stitches

I fell in love with this fun pattern and when I started sewing realized if I was going to offer this in the shop it might be a good idea to go over some of the things I encountered during my afternoon of sewing. We're making the Folded Fabric Christmas Tree. I'm not giving any measurements with these tips. This is a copyrighted pattern you'll need to purchase.

A picture is worth a thousand words so let's get started -

Depending on the size you're making you'll start by sewing your strips together as directed.

Label your strips as directed. I used the Alphabitties for this.

Cut your strips in segments according to the directions. Be sure to follow the directions to label your segments. Easy peasy so far, right? If you're wondering which fabric I'm using, it's from the Christmas Memories collection by Riley Blake.

You need to cut the angles on your segments. You can use a specialty ruler but to be honest.............

I found it a lot easier to just rotate my ruler back and forth. If you want to order one of the specialty rulers just email me and I'd be happy to order one for you.

We're going to sew the side seams. Backstitch at the top edges and clip the corners before turning right side out..

Now, these are pretty sharp points and I poked holes in my fabric before I realized these are not going to be sharp points when you turn them right side out. Once I accepted this, things continued to go pretty fast. I opted to use a scalloped blade in my rotary cutter rather than zigzag or serge the top edges of the segments. Next time, I think I'll do one or the other but didn't have the serger with me at the lake and was too lazy to change my throat plate to do a zigzag. Pretty bad, huh? I am keeping myself organized with these cute paper plates.

Now we are getting to what I found to be the tricky part. This is going to be the base for your tree. A solid-color fabric is recommended. I was going to use a piece of my tree fabric but the wrong side of the fabric would show under my branches so I went with the only coordinating solid-color fabric I had at the cottage. In retrospect, I wish I'd followed the pattern and made a paper pattern to cut from. I think I would have been happier with the shape of my base. It came out a bit narrow for my segments but still worked. You can see I was following the instructions for folding my base piece.

I marked..................

I cut using my pinking rotary blade............

I stitched as directed...............

Turned, pressed, and stitched. Take a break ......... As I said, next time I'm going to make a paper pattern for this section. I'd like this piece to have a little more body to it and might add a seam allowance to the pattern so I could make a nice turned edge on the sides instead of just turning the raw edge to the inside one. I suppose you could use felt for the base. That would give you nice edges even turning up the bottom edge. I also felt it was about 1/2" too narrow when I went to attach my segments.

I used a wood grain fabric for my trunk. It's from The View From Here by Northcott Studio.

You're going to start adding your tree segments at this point. You can see how mine extends off the edge on both sides. I experienced this with each segment and maybe I sewed something incorrectly but it bothered me so I'll make sure that doesn't happen next time. Also, before you sew the first segment in place, I'd center your trunk underneath it against the base and stitch it in place when you stitch the first segment. The directions don't tell you to do this but when I got to the trunk instructions it was obvious I could have done this so the raw edge at the top of the trunk was neatly tucked away.

Keep adding your segments as directed. I recommend doing this on your cutting mat so you can keep everything nice and square. You don't want to end up with a lopsided tree.

The finishing instructions were pretty clear. After I tied my hanging cord through the enclosed tube I was able to tuck the knot to the inside so everything was neat and tidy. I've had trouble getting the velcro to stick to my star but that could be because I painted both sides and didn't rough up the back before gluing. I'll work on that.

Thanks to Barb Tomasov for the following tip - If you have trouble getting your star to stick, Barb used a Command hook which has the two-sided tape that sticks to the wall and holds pictures that are much heavier than the star. She cut it to the length of her velcro to match the hook and said it worked like a charm.

I hope you'll have fun making a tree and please, make a few extra to cheer someone up during the holidays. If you get stuck somewhere, email me and I'll do my best to help.

Happy Stitching,

Gay