Christmas in July Series – Bonus Projects from your Christmas Tree Skirt Fabric Scraps

Special note: This was supposed to go up last week, but I had to get emergency dental surgery and that just threw everything off! I hope you will forgive me the delay. I will post extra this week, I promise! Enjoy.

Blame it on hoarding, or my mom, or my complete and utter addiction to fabric, but I have a hard time throwing scrap fabric away.

So when I was making the Speedy Spiral Christmas Tree Skirt, I just knew that I would have to come up with some cool ways to use the scrap fabric, especially the extra wedges that I got out of my strip sets! I mean really, I paid good money for those gorgeous fabrics, I sewed those strips together, I ironed the seams in the opposite directions so my seams would nest, and now I am just supposed to throw away perfectly good fabric? I think not!

So I made this awesome table runner.

Bonus Table Runner

I started by picking out 8 of the leftever wedges that I got from cutting out the Christmas Tree Skirt. These wedges are not perfectly cut and were not all the same size so I just picked the 8 best looking ones. I pulled off the skinny little top fabric since it was less than a quarter inch so I knew it wouldn’t show anyway. Next, I cut a piece of Sulky Soft ‘n Sheer™ 16-1/2″ x 41″ to serve as my foundation for the table runner.

I started by laying down my first wedge about 3″ from the left of the Soft n Sheer.

Then I cut a 4″ strip of white fabric and put that right sides together lining up one edge of the white with one edge of the wedge.

I sewed a 1/4″ seem and then ironed it open.

Next, I took another 4″ strip of white fabric and did the same thing on the other side of the wedge.

Then I took another wedge, flipped it so the large side was at the top and put that right sides together, and lined up the the edge of the white strip of fabric that was sewn to the right side of the first wedge.

I sewed a 1/4″ seam, flipped it open and pressed. I continued that process until all 8 wedges and nine 4″ white strips were sewn down.

Now the middle of the table runner is finished! I cut 1″ strips to add to the top and bottom of the center and then, since I still had a few inches of the strip sets left, I cut those into 2″ strips and added them all the way around the runner.

Now on to quilting! I used the pillowcase method to finish the runner since I didn’t want to add binding. I just used leftover fabric for the back.

For quilting, I decided to use the same Sulky Metallic Threads that I had used in the Christmas Tree Skirt. If you haven’t Quilted with metallic threads, check out this blog post for tips.

I did echo quilting of the wedges in the white sections, and a simple wave in Sulky Sliver™ in silver in the wedges and the border.

I love it! I think it will look great with my new Christmas tree skirt this Christmas.

Easy Mug Rug

I still had a few wedges left, so I sewed then together matching the skinny end of one to the large end of the other so I ended up with pseudo-rectangles. I sewed enough together to make this little mug rug.

This mug rug is 8″ x 8″. I cut the top and the batting to 8″ x 8″ and then cut my backing to 10″ x 10″ so I could use it to bind the mug rug.

Using the backing fabric to bind small project like this is an easy way to finish a project. Here is how I like to do it.

Spray a little Sulky KK 2000 Temporary Spray Adhesive all around the 1″ edge of the wrong side of the fabric.

Fold it in half long ways on the top side of the project.

Then fold that over the front and batting and use Clover Wonder Clips to hold it in place.

Now fold in a triangle at the left corner.

Next fold the left side in half.

Then fold that over the front and batting and use the clips to hold it in place. This will give you perfect mitered corners and nice even binding. Repeat this around the entire project, then topstitch and enjoy!

I hope you will enjoy doing these bonus project as much as I did. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Happy Sewing!