Holiday fun and a finish

My intention last evening was to go straight home after work and get DD Elaine's tree skirt finished and also work on some last minute gifties for my co-workers.  But I was waylaid by a phone call from DD Erica asking if I was going to my mom and dad's for dinner.  I chose dinner!  Is there anything more fun than sitting around with your brothers and sister, nieces and nephew, mom and dad, husband and kids and telling family stories, laughing, eating homemade minestrone soup, and talking over each other?  It's this that makes me feel rich!   I must say I feel sorry for "only" children at holiday time as they have no siblings to rib or relive childhood adventures with. 

Finally I tore myself away at nearly 9:30 and headed home.  I sat down at the sewing machine probably around 10ish and finished the tree skirt about 12:30 after a few fits and starts at unsewing and unquilting. 

Perhaps it was not the best choice to stage the skirt on top of those placemats--the reds are clashing!  (See my cute shiny ball salt and pepper shakers in the top right corner--of course the red one has the pepper in it!)

I decided simple was best and only buttonhole stitched/simultaneously quilted around the ornaments.  I used the "tube" method of continuous bias binding construction found here, and like the effect of the rick-rack stripe fabric.  This small tree skirt surprisingly required over 120 inches of bias binding, which I cut from a 19" square of fabric.  I used the tail end to make the ties. 

Here's hoping this is not my last finish of the year--my sister flew in last night and brought her sewing machine with her.  She also gave me a fabulous gift--a Supreme Slider sheet.  Thanks, Kathy! This will help a lot with my work on Erica's quilt, which has remained untouched for two weeks since I did the first round of free motion fleur de lis!

Merry Christmas everyone!