This past spring was a particularly busy time for me design wise, as I created more than six different projects for various holiday and winter articles.

The payoff, of course, is seeing my projects in print. This easy quilted tree skirt appears in the Holiday issue of Create & Decorate, a magazine that specializes in country and folk styles.

Here are some pictures of the tree skirt – my pictures never look as lovely or as beautifully styled as the ones in the magazines. They make my work look so nice.

None the less, I am getting better at remembering to take pictures before I package my projects up. I’d like to say that I always get my designs done in plenty of time and am never rushing around at the last minute(and if any of my editors are reading this, I always have your projects done early! *whistling innocently*) but somehow, life can and usually does get in the way of interruption-free sewing and creative time.

That said, it’s funny what shows up when you look at an object through the lens of a camera.

I think I would have added more definition to this pot, for one. It looks too flat, now that I see it laid out.

On the other hand, I really like how this star pops and the quilting echoes the shape.

And the bias binding on this circle is really, really smooth. Some days my bindings go in ripple-free and other days nothing I do seems to make a difference. The day I bound this quilt, it was the former!

But no quilt is ever perfect and in this case, it’s not the sample but the instructions that have the boo-boo. An eagle-eyed reader, Carol B., was kind enough to point out that somehow or another I transposed my numbers as I was writing the directions and there is an error in the cutting instructions.

In the cutting directions on page 63, Step #2, it should read “From the brown print fabric cut (16) 9 1/2″ x 3 1/2″ squares and three tree pot appliqués.” rather than the 8 1/2″ x 4 1/2″ inch rectangles specified in the original instructions.

Mea culpe. And thanks Carol for being so on the ball! Extra presents under your tree, for sure.