• Batting slightly larger than your finished size quilt.

• Assorted white background fabrics. At least 10 different fabrics for the best blending.

• Assorted green background fabrics for the tree. You will need at least 10 different fabrics for the best look.

• Backing fabric, preferably one of the same ones used in the tree

• Christmas tree pattern.

• Thread, pins, scissors, sewing machine

A note on choosing a size for your quilt: Make your quilt to fit your backing fabric. If your backing fabric is 44" wide, make your quilt about 36" to 38" wide. This way you won't have to do any piecing to make the back. You can certainly make a larger quilt, but it will just require more work.

Measure your batting. The pattern size you choose needs to be a few inches smaller than the batting.

If the pattern consists of more than one sheet of paper, overlap the pattern and tape it together.

Place the pattern on top of the batting to check for size. You don't want the pattern too close to the edges of the batting. You need to leave room for the binding.

Cut away the background so all you have left is a tree.

Center the tree pattern on the batting. Using a fabric safe pen, trace the edges of the tree. 

I like to use a Micron Pigma pen, but you can use any pen or other method to transfer the design as long as it won't bleed or otherwise ruin the fabric.

Make sure you traced all the lines around the pattern and that the lines are dark enough to be visible.

This is where the fun design process starts. 

Using various sizes and shapes of the different green fabrics, start filling in the tree. We are basically "coloring between the lines" using fabrics.

Play with the pieces of fabric. Find the ones that fit best within the lines. If a piece doesn't work one place, find another place to put it.

Make sure the fabrics overlap at least 1/8". You need that much or more overlap so that the batting doesn't show through. Also, the fabric can shift as you are working on the piece. Even a small shift could result in the batting becoming visible.

This is especially important as all the edges will all remain raw. We will not be finishing or treating the edges in any way.

When you are certain that two pieces of fabric are in their permanent locations, pin them together to the batting.

You may need to trim some pieces of fabric to fit.

Keep adding fabric until the entire design is filled in. For a design such as this tree, it is easiest to work from the outside edges toward the middle.

Remember, try not to place two identical fabrics near each other. You want to blend the fabrics as equally as possible.

View the slideshow of the remaining process of filling in the tree. (There's no sound.)

Yes, we are quilting before do anything with the background. It is much easier to quilt the center section first. Less chance of being poked with a pin this way! Note that we haven't added the backing fabric yet either. The method we are following will be more work to quilt, but will result in no puckers.

Click here for a really cool close up view!

Quilt within the lines. Do your quilting at least 1" away from the edges of the design.

The reason for doing it this way is so that later on we can slide the background fabrics underneath the tree fabrics.

Free motion quilting demo

Pay careful attention to how I use my fingers to hold down the fabric.

We are now going to free motion quilt the tree.

Use a thread to complement the tree fabrics. I like to use a gold metallic thread; however, if you are new to free motion quilting over raw edges, I suggest a good quality cotton or polyester thread so you are not fighting with the thread.

Tips for using metallic thread.

Now we are going to do the same procedure that we did to make the tree, except we are going to use white fabrics to create the background.