The Handmade Christmas Tree

Last week I wanted a tree.

My husband grew up on fake trees and I grew up on real trees. My family and I would go down to a tree farm and ride a horse drawn wagon to the trees. We would eat apples. I lost a tooth in an apple on a wagon out there. Then we would spend time finding the perfect tree, cutting it down and bagging it. I loved watching it go through the net thing!

Now that we are no longer students I really wanted to start this tradition with my family. And we were going to get one. Until reality kicked in. With husband working insane hours he has had no time off to go with us to get a tree. And last week I NEEDED a tree. And I didn't know when we would be getting one. So I made one.

And with the weather getting colder and colder out here it is probably a good thing I did. I didn't want to feel like Audrey in Christmas Vacation. "She'll look later honey, her eyes are frozen."

Plus, it is almost Christmas. And we still haven't had one single day to go out and get a tree yet.

So everyday until Christmas I will be posting pictures of my tree and giving a "how I did it" tutorial. In case you want one for next year. Because really it's the prefect tree for a little family. The kids can't break anything. And it's made for them to decorate and redecorate.

You'll see what I mean by that once I show you more pictures.

Bear with me on the pictures. They are hard to take when you are blocking all the natural light with a fake tree in the window.

This is the blank slate. First I took two pieces of white fabric and sewed them together up the middle so I had a HUGE square to cover my 2 windows in my dining room. It didn't matter that there was a seam down the middle because the tree would be covering it.

Then I traced out half a tree on some paper and when I was happy with it I cut it out on my fabric (folded in half). Next I pinned and re-pinned. And then re-pinned again. Kids really like running on large pieces of fabric laying on the ground.

Then it was time for appliqueing.Not very fun. I didn't iron on anything under it since it was such a large piece and that would have been way too expensive. But if you pin it down enough you should have no problems.

I sewed (is that a word?) the tree, trunk and star. With the star I wanted a little 3D effect so I added some stuffing.

Oh, and before you begin, I recommend checking to make sure you have enough thread. I actually ran out of green, yellow, and brown thread all while I was trying to sew this. What are the chances of that happening? And when I checked the clock it was 15 minutes till the local fabric store closed. So the completion of sewing had to wait till the next day.

Tomorrow: Ornaments