Advertorial · Presented by CedarAndTin Co. · Falstone, Northumberland · By Helen Marsden

She’s quilted close to 900 of them in twelve years — and never once sold one online. This is the final run.

Jean Fairbairn (68), the Northumberland quilter closing her barn at Falstone after 30 years, has been making these woodland tree skirts quietly — to order, for people who asked. The barn goes at the end of January. She nearly didn’t mention them at all.

Jean Fairbairn’s barn goes at the end of January. The lease is up, the building is being sold, and the stone room beside the house — woodburner in the corner, thirty years of fabric stacked along the wall, the window looking straight out at the spruce — won’t be hers after that.

But the last thing to come out of that barn won’t be a quilt. It’s a tree skirt.

“I’ve been putting them by quietly for years,” she says. “Whenever I wanted a change from the quilts, I’d switch over to these. It was almost a secret project.” She pauses. “I never meant them to be the last thing. They just are.”

“I’m sixty-eight,” she says. “My hands are still good most days. But my thumb seizes up after four hours now, and the long winter stints at the machine are behind me.” She looks at them — knuckles thickened from three decades of pushing fabric through. “That’s not all of it, mind. The world I learnt this for has mostly gone. Proper handwork has got harder to find and harder to pass on.”

Falstone, Northumberland. Early November. The mist sits in the valley until nine, the forestry lorries come down the Kielder road, and the barn smells of cotton, woodsmoke and the kettle that’s been on since six. Along the back wall, stacked in careful rows on Jean’s shelves, sit the tree skirts. Each one quilted. Each one with a doe and her fawn bedded down in the roots.

“I kept them to myself a long while. The quilts were what people came to the stall for. These were just mine. But I can’t take them all with me when I shut that door. They ought to go somewhere.”

30 years of quilting — and the one thing she never put on the stall

Jean has been quilting for thirty years. Her mother handed over the first machine in 1996, and the quilts, cushion covers and table runners have been going out ever since — the Hexham Christmas Market, the stall at Corbridge, the Bellingham Show every summer, the same pitches for over two decades. For the last several years her quilts have gone out through her small online shop as well.

The tree skirts are newer. She started about twelve years ago, one at a time, for people she knew. She’s quilted close to nine hundred since, alongside everything else. Every one passed through her hands.

“It was neighbours at first,” she says. “Then a customer wrote and asked if I’d do her one. Then her sister. Then a woman in Perthshire I’ve never met.” She laughs. “They found their people. I never worked out how. They just did.”

It started at the Hexham Christmas Market. A woman stopped at the stall and said — not even complaining, just saying it — that she’d finally treated herself to a proper tree and would be standing it on a red plastic base, same as every year.

“She said it was like a good pair of boots with the laces left hanging out.” Jean shakes her head. “And she had a point. We put the nicest thing in the house up for four weeks and stand it on a lump of plastic.”

She went home and quilted the first one.

She never brought finished skirts to the markets. She made them quietly, to order, for people who asked twice. “They travelled by word of mouth, like everything else I’ve made,” she says. “I never had to advertise one.”

Until now. The barn goes at the end of January. These are what’s left — and for the first time in twelve years, they’re available to anyone.

What makes Jean’s tree skirt different

What sets these apart isn’t the deer, as lovely as they are. It’s how they’re built — the same construction Jean has used on every quilted piece since 1996.

Each skirt is cut from a heavy cotton-poly blend — the softness and breathability of cotton with the durability and easy care of polyester — layered around a firm wadded interior and quilted all the way through. That’s what gives it its weight. It lies flat the day it comes out of the box and it still lies flat in year ten. No curling at the edges, no rucking up when someone walks past.

The woodland scene is quilted into the panel, not printed onto it. The roots, the moss, the pine cones and the stones have real dimension — you can feel them under your hand, and the tree lights catch in the stitching after dark. Nothing to peel, crack or wash off. It’s part of the fabric.

And it’s 48 inches across — 122 cm. That matters more than people expect. “Most of what you can buy is ninety centimetres,” Jean says. “I measured the stands. At that size the feet stick out the sides and you’ve solved nothing.” 122 cm covers the stand entirely and still leaves a deep border for the presents to sit on.

The centre opening is 4 inches — 10 cm. Wide enough to drop over any standard stand post, narrow enough that you’re not looking down into the water reservoir. A strip of hook-and-loop runs the length of the slit, so the skirt closes behind the tree and the seam disappears. “You press it shut and leave it,” Jean says. “Nothing to come undone when somebody’s rooting about under there on Christmas morning.”

“The whole idea was that the tree should look like it grew there. The roots on the skirt run straight up into the trunk. You oughtn’t be able to tell where one stops.”

You can’t buy a wood. But you can have one under your tree.

The scene on the skirt isn’t invented. It’s what’s outside the barn door.

There are red squirrels in the forestry behind Jean’s house — Kielder is one of the last strongholds left in England, and she sees them most mornings on the feeder. The roe deer come down to the edge of the plantation at dusk. The robin is in the barn with her from October onwards, as robins are.

“There aren’t many places left where you can say there are red squirrels at the bottom of your garden. I thought if I was going to put a wood under somebody’s tree, it may as well be a real one.”

The part of the tree nobody photographs — and everybody sees

Ask anyone about their tree and they’ll tell you about the lights or the baubles. Nobody mentions the bottom three feet. But it’s the first thing you see from the doorway, it’s what the grandchildren sit on, and it’s where every present in the house ends up.

It also takes the punishment. Needles, water from the stand, the dog, the cat who assumes the whole thing was put up for her. “A good skirt does two jobs,” Jean says. “It catches everything that drops, and it looks like something while it’s doing it. No reason it can’t do both.”

The cotton-poly blend takes a shake-out over the gate and goes straight back down. Spills wipe off the surface rather than soaking through.

“I’ve customers on their tenth Christmas with the same one”

Jean pulls the old biscuit tin out from under the worktable — the same one she’s had since the nineties. Inside are cards and photographs from customers. She slides out one that arrived last January.

“Dear Mrs Fairbairn — this is the tenth Christmas with the tree skirt you made me. My grandchildren are the second lot to sit on it. My daughter has asked me twice now what happens to it when I’m gone, which I’m choosing to take as a compliment. The tree changes every year. That doesn’t. I just wanted you to know.”

“That’s what I wanted,” Jean says. “Not something you put away because it’s too nice. Something that’s out every December and lasts long enough to be argued over.”

Three designs from Jean’s final collection

What you get

• Real quilted construction. Cotton-poly face, wadded interior, quilted all the way through — not a printed felt circle. Lies flat out of the box and stays flat.
• The scene is stitched, not printed. Roots, moss, pine cones and stones with real dimension you can feel. Nothing to peel, crack or wash off.
• 122 cm across (48"). Covers the whole stand — feet included — with a deep border left over for presents. Most skirts are 90 cm and leave the stand showing.
• 10 cm centre opening. Drops over any standard stand post. No looking down into the water reservoir.
• Closes behind the tree. A hook-and-loop strip down the full length of the slit. Press it shut and the seam disappears — nothing to work loose.
• Three designs. Woodland, winter, and the one with the wrapped presents quilted into the scene. Same construction, same size.
• The scene wraps all the way around. No front and back. It reads from every side of the room.
• Built to come out every year. Shake it out over the gate and put it back down. Customers are on their tenth Christmas with the same one.

Jean’s final run — limited quantities remain

SEE WHAT’S LEFT — £42

£61 Free returns · Dispatched in 2–3 days

What customers sent in

• Hand-quilted
• UK-wide delivery
• Free returns, 30 days
• Secure checkout

She’s set a flat close-out price: £42, down from the £61 she’s always charged for one made to order. “I’m not doing this for the money at this stage,” she says. “I want them under trees that’ll actually get used. Not folded in a cupboard waiting for the right year.”

Her granddaughter Rosie (21), home from Newcastle, and her grandson Tom (17) are helping her photograph and pack the last of them. “Rosie says the deer look like they’re waiting on somebody,” Jean says. “I thought that was about right.”

Twelve years she kept these to herself. These are the last ones she’ll make. Thank you, Jean.

This page is a paid advertisement published by CedarAndTin Co. Hearth & Heritage Review is a branded content format, not an independent news publication, and the account above is presented as told to the advertiser. Testimonials reflect individual experiences and results may vary. Images are for illustrative purposes; because each piece is finished by hand, the product you receive may vary slightly. Tree, stand and decorations are not included.