Christmas in July: Camo Tree Skirt

Most of the sisters. And the brother.  And Mom.

I have a lot of sisters and a brother.  When my niece was born 25 years ago, I could only imagine how many nieces and nephews I might have.  (Of course 25 years ago, I was in the thick of imagining that I would have children too.  And a husband.  Preferably before the kids.  I had a vivid imagination and a lot of hope 25 years ago.)

The math was easy enough. If all 8 of us had just 2 or 3 kids, the possibility of a couple of dozen in that generation loomed.  Imagine all the Christmas presents I’d be on the hook for!  I could also foresee all the Christmas presents that would be outgrown and forgotten.  So I hatched a plan that would make potentially overwhelming future Christmas-present-buying do-able.  As a side-effect of my plan, I could expect that some of the gifts I gave those kids-yet-to-be-born would be remembered for a long time.   

Every year, I give my nieces and nephews a Christmas ornament.  In their senior year of high school, I give them a tree topper.  And the following year, I make them a tree skirt.  (Except poor Zoe who is still waiting for her tree skirt 4 years later.  Though when it’s done, it will be magnificent)

This past Christmas was Christmas-tree-skirt-year for my oldest nephew.  The thing that turned out to be brilliant about giving ornaments every year is that they serve as a sort of log of the varying obsessions my nieces and nephews have had over the years.  (There have been a LOT of Hello Kitty ornaments.)   

From a very young age, my nephew has loved the outdoor life that leads to hunting in Western Pennsylvania where he is being raised.  (He probably thinks that’s past tense, but nobody is fully raised by 19 or 20.) 

 
His collection of tree ornaments is probably the least eclectic of any of the kids’.  There are all sorts of woodsy animals made of a variety of materials.   

And one Darth Vader ornament.  

 (His other spinster aunts introduced him to Harrison Ford at an early age with both Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies.  It was self defense against a certain purple dinosaur that was obscenely popular in his developmental years.)

I spent a good hour at the fabric store trying to decide which fleece would make a nice tree skirt.  I went back and forth and finally chose a red one with paw prints all over it.  It was between that and the camo.  He has always loved camo.  Since he was old enough to have an opinion about clothes.   The red paw print fabric seemed so Christmasy.  I brought it home and looked at it for a while.  And then took it back and exchanged it for the camo.   

So what if it isn't exactly Christmasy?

So what if it wasn’t as Christmasy?  It was definitely something I knew he would love.  (And the longer I looked at those paw prints, they more they appeared to be domesticated canine prints.  Not something woodsy like deer or bear.) 

Still, it is a Christmas tree skirt.  So it needed some kind of bling.  I turned to the classic rick-rack as I so often do.  My grandmother who was my sewing mentor had a deep and abiding dedication to the stuff.   

  

So here is a close-up of the camouflage tree skirt with jumbo gold rick-rack trim. 

Jumbo rick-rack bling on camo

I like the way it turned out.  I could imagine my nephew using it for a tree in a bachelor pad where the decorations are beer cans.  Or maybe some day if he gets married and has a family, it could be on a tree in his man cave.

But the thing I love most about this tree skirt is how much HE loved it when he opened it.  So what if he was 19? He loved it so much he wrapped himself up in it and wore it as a cape for the rest of Christmas Eve.  (He also loved a gift from one of my sisters that involved a spinny cushioned seat to top a 5-gallon bucket for fishing.  So he spent the night spinning in his cape/skirt)

 

Tree skirt, stingray or cape?

In the end, only 5 of my siblings had kids, so I lucked out with more like a dozen nieces and nephews instead of the 24 I had anticipated.  Still, I am so glad I made that plan 25 years ago.  I have had so much fun choosing ornaments each year that suited their interests.  I love looking at their trees and seeing woodsy animals and Darth Vader or Nutcrackers and Hello Kitties and grand pianos and…

I really should get started on the ornaments for this Christmas.  There are a lot of  Doctor Who-obsessed nieces and nephews these days.  And for the older ones? Game of Thrones, of course!

Day 35, 65 to go: Dotted tree skirt

Volleyballs, Snowballs, Jingle Bells

Those gnomes still have not made themselves.  And Xmas is coming awfully soon isn’t it?  I will spend much of tomorrow on a bus, so that means more hat-crocheting. 

Once I get to my mom’s I am gonna have to make a lot of gnomes…

In the meantime, here is the tree skirt I have actually finished.  Remember those failed volleyball pajama bottoms?  Here is a tree skirt for that niece.  I was quite taken with the print on this fleece.  It was only later I realized it could be taken for a barrage of volleyballs…or snowballs…or jingle bells? 

Day 21, 79 to go: Dachshund pajama pants

I made this myself!

Last Christmas, I taught my then 9-year-old niece Anastasia to sew.  We made a nightgown together. I cut it out and attached the sleeves due to time constraints, but she did all of the other sewing.  I picked this fabric because she has a couple of dachshunds, Petey and Doodlebug.  

Peteys and Doodlebugs

So  here are the pajama pants she is getting for St. Nicholas Day this year.  It’s just covered in Peteys and Doodlebugs.   I am sending her extra fabric so she can make a pillowcase to match.  She took a sewing class at Jo-ann’s and made a pillowcase there.  I am so glad she is excited about sewing.  I love feeling like my grandmothers are living on in yet another generation.

Day 21.  I have been at this for 3 weeks.  Time flies whether or not you are having fun.  I thought I would count up my output to see what I have accomplished so far.

Crocheted hat: 1

Etsy Shop: 1

Embroidered tea towels: 3

Medieval Tunic: 1

Pajama bottoms: 9

Polymer clay earrings: 1 ½

Raggedy Dolls: 2

Raggedy doll nightgowns: 2

Red flannel nightgowns: 1 1/2

Xmas Tree Skirt: 1 started, 1 gnome (20 to go)

It’s a start. Once Xmas is over, I hope to move on to curtains, slipcovers, pillow covers, tea cozies and some jumpers, dresses and blouses… oh, and a resume…

Day 7, 93 to go: Robot PJs and Gnome #1

The first thing I made today was a batch of Ghirardelli brownies.  Nothing special, but a good source of warmth and chocolate in the kitchen (which is also where I sew.)

Just the right size.

Then I whipped up the robot pajamas.  They went really fast.  My sister sent me her kids’ measurements and I am kind of proud that I predicted what size her kids would be now when I cut them out earlier this year.  (I must have cut them out too late for them to get any use out of them last winter.)

I learned that another of my sisters is reading this blog because she guessed the general concept of the tree skirt.  Of course she had an incredibly unfair advantage since she is Zoe’s aunt.

Gnome #1?

This is Zoe.  She loves GNOMES.   No one can really explain why.  She just does.  So she dressed up as a garden gnome for Halloween in this gorgeous costume my sister Barb made for her. (Barb is her mom.)   Zoe is an incredibly creative person.   

Dressing up as a garden gnome is one thing.  Having the leadership skills to convince all your friends to dress up as lawn ornaments is even more impressive, don’t you think?  The group included a Kissing Dutch Girl, Flamingo, Lawn Jockey and best of all, a BVM.  Because no lawn is complete without Our Lady of the Lawn.

So the official name of this design is The Amish Gnomes of Whoville.  Amish because, like Amish dolls, they won’t have faces.  Whoville because it occurred to me that a bunch of gnomes holding hands around a Christmas tree was an awful lot like the big musical number in How the Grinch Stole Christmas. (The Boris Karloff cartoon version, NOT the horror show that involved Jim Carrey. Anyone want to sing along? Dahoo Doris, Fahoo Foraze Welcome Christmas, Christmas day.  Just wanted to make sure it was stuck in your head too if it was gonna be stuck in mine)

There are a total of 21 gnomes who will encircle the tree.  My plan is to make each one different and individual somehow.  This is the first gnome.  She is at the far right end of the skirt. Hopefully my design process will come together better as I work my way toward the front of it.  

Gnome #1

This one is very loosely based on Zoe’s Halloween costume.  Green waist cincher, red hat, braids, white peasant blouse and then a skirt with a kind of miniature PA Dutch print I had in my stash.  I don’t have any yellow in my stash. Or orange.  So I went with the red heart fabric for the apron.  It seemed Christmasy. Hearts are big in German folk art.

So from here until Christmas, you can expect to meet the rest of the Gnome Collective.  If you have any ideas for gnome costumes or tributes, I welcome them.  Should there be a Miss Piggy gnome, for instance?  Or perhaps a Browncoat gnome.  Zoe won’t know what it is, but I will.   Maybe I will include characters from musicals she loves. Wicked, maybe?

Anyhow Grubsneerg, you came the closest.  You want pajama pants or a sleep shirt?

Day 6, 94 to go: Zoe’s Tree Skirt (Part 2)

It matches the thank-you card!

When I opened my email this morning, I discovered that one of my sisters actually reads this blog.  Who knew?  She wanted to make sure I knew what size to make those pjs for her boys—you know, the ones that I didn’t work on yesterday.  So I guess I am going to have to break down and assemble them.   I got a very sweet thank-you note from her sons in the snail mail today. (I had sent them some magic trick decks of cards)

Note to my sister: Hey Martha, this is the fabric I picked out for your kids’ pajamas.  Based on the image on the thank-you card, I am guessing you like it?

I worked on Zoe’s tree skirt again today. I stitched that ginormous rick-rack to it and discovered that I have really good spatial relations skills.  I had about 4 yards of it, which was not enough to put around the outside edge of the skirt as I had originally envisioned.   Yesterday I had pinned it in place to get an idea of how it might fit into the design I had in mind. 

Arbitrarily, I decided to sew it 4 ¾” from the edge.  Not 4 ½”, not 5”.  I have no logical reason that 4 ¾” struck me as right.  I basted the rick-rack in place and discovered I had found the circumference that was just right for the amount of rick-rack I had available.  There was about an inch left over at each end, which was perfect to tuck under to finish the edge.   I could have done math out the wazoo for hours to figure it out.  But it turns out, at least for today, all I needed was to follow my intuition. 

Any guesses?

I also worked on a series of pink sections that I had started making last night.  I stopped when I got tired of the intricate cutting, thinking I probably had another dozen or so to make.   Today I pinned them in place only to discover I had gotten tired of making them just as I'd made the last one I'd need!  I am feeling quite triumphant about my sense of space when it comes to sewing.  I don’t know how I did that, and am wondering if anyone would be impressed if I put that on my resume.  This is what the back looks like today.  You can see the straight line of the basting on the large rick-rack, the curvy stitching along the bottom edge of the rick-rack and then a line of stitching at odd angles above.  Can anyone guess what I am making?

I am in awe of my spatial relations skills today.

How about now from the front?  Any ideas? Please guess in the comments section below. If you guess right, I will whip up a pair of pajama bottoms for you.  I thought up a name for this design—as if it were an artwork on display in a gallery.  I will reveal it tomorrow, along with a sample of one of the pink sections finished.

So far, blogging daily has been really helpful to my getting-through-the-day process.  The discipline was tough to force myself into-both making something every day and then writing about it.  I don’t feel like I have gotten into my writing groove yet, but I do sense I am getting somewhere.   
If you want to read an incredibly entertaining blog, I highly recommend checking the link here to Sharon Wheatley’s blog, My Own Space.  She is married to a guy who went to school with my younger sisters.  She is a Broadway musical actress. He is a music theater professor and music director.  They live in NYC and have two daughters with the most lovely literary names, Charlotte and Beatrix. Sharon writes in the funniest voice and manages to make both the crises and the daily drone of life entertaining, exciting and full of cliffhangers. She is also the author of a book called Til the Fat Girl Sings. How can you not love a book with that title? (And it's really cheap on Amazon right now.)

I love Fleece.  And also shrubbery. Ni!

Apparently today was Felicity’s day to take the watch.  She perched herself in the middle of the table for a while on alert.  Then she crawled into the pile of fabric and took a nice long nap.  She is a big fan of fleece fabric.

As I was finishing up this entry, Fergus jumped up on the table to play with the mouse.  Not a toy mouse.  The computer mouse. I had no idea he understood IT.

Day 5, 95 to go. Tree Skirt (Part 1)

Pajamas didn’t happen today.  I looked at the cut-out pjs and just wasn’t in the mood to zip them together.  Instead, I decided to start on something that has been hanging over me for a couple of years.

When my first niece Katelyn was born, I started a tradition of giving a Christmas ornament to each of my nieces and nephews on Christmas Eve.   I try to find them ornaments that reflect their interests and obsessions.  By the time they graduate from high school, they should have a collection of ornaments that serve as a kind of timeline of the story of their lives. 

To complete their collections, I give them tree toppers in their senior year of high school.  For the following years, I give them other stuff that would complete a tree—lights, plain ball ornaments, a tree skirt...

So I started working on Zoe’s tree skirt today.  This is all I have done so far. This will take a while, but hopefully it will be just right for her when it’s done.  Then I have to do one for Kathryn who is a college freshman… I don’t have that one designed in my head yet.

I didn’t realize just how involved the catlings get in my creative process.  When I put the sewing machine away for the night, Fergus came over to see what I had accomplished so far. 

Thank goodness for his supervision.