Project Purgatory

I'm keeping to my list. It is slowly killing me. 

I took a month off from my Christmas projects and now after a few days of revisiting the tree skirt where I left it, I remember why I abandoned it in the first place! 

 

I finally sucked up enough courage to give Prairie Points a go. Oddly enough, they were far easier than I had imagined. They are all cut and ironed and ready to be attached to the edge of the skirt. But first I need to have my ruffle finished:

 

The pattern suggested using crochet yarn to pull the ruffle and that little handy trick seems to have worked great so far. Just one sneaky problem--no word on when (or how) I'm supposed to remove the yarn! 

Also, no word on how I'm supposed to complete the finished edge of the skirt. I find myself at a stalemate once more. 

I hate pinning my projects with the passion of 10,000 burning suns. I confess that I use as few pins to secure my quilts as humanly possible and work slowly smoothing by hand as I go with far better results. Pins cause puckers for me, I just can't figure it out. I'm obviously doing something wrong in the process. But I think I'm going to have to face up to the fact that finishing this skirt is going to require an army of pins and the patience of a saint. 

Why did I start this project? Lord help me, I will say many a prayer of thanksgiving when it is finished and I can move on to the next item on my list.