Is your advent calendar up yet?

When my husband pointed out a few weeks ago that we should go buy our advent calendars I was appalled. How come I have been giving him supermarket bought advent calendars for the past three years! This year it was time to do something different! And I did it on time for a Saturday 1 December start (only got blogging about it today).

So after many different ideas I came across a fabric that I liked and voilà new advent calendar.

And if you are interested in knowing about how I made it, I am feeling like a tutorial today... so here it goes. What do you need?

For this calendar I am using 5 stripes of fabric of 15 x 3.5 inches both for the front of the pockets and back (use some fabric you do not care about as you won't see it). And the same size stripes of batting. Also a fat quarter for the back and one in contrasting colour for the binding (you could also used some pre-made bias tape).

1. Layer, as if making a quilt sandwich, a strip of backing fabric, right side down, binding and top fabric right side up. Pin to keep in place. 2. Quilt each sandwich in your desired quilt pattern. I used  straight lines using my all purpose foot (there was no need for a walking foot for this short strip of fabric). 3. Quilt all your strips in the same way.

Once the quilting is done, put the ready made bias tape or strip of contrasting fabric (there is really no need for it to be cut on the bias) right sides together with one of the sides of the quilted strips. Sew in with a 1/4 inch seam allowance.

Then fold the fabric over, and sew a straight seam to secure the wrong side as well as decorate the front.

Next measure 15 inches in the fat quarter of backing fabric and cut off the remaining fabric.

Use this extra fabric to create a long tube of fabric that you will use for the three holding loops.

So now that you have all the parts ready, you only really need to choose and sew the pockets in your desired location onto the backing fabric. Once that is done, you then need to mark pockets sewing lines. I used a water soluble marker, like this.

Sew the pockets following the marked lines (note my wonky line... well just make sure you sew on the right one!). Then you only need to bind it around (same as you would do with a quilt) and attach the three loops of fabric in the top for hanging.

I also used a little stick I picked from the park, painted in white, for holding it. And of course glue the numbers (I used ready made felt numbers in red and white) to each of the pockets, we decided that for extra fun we wanted them in random order... And look how cute it is all full up!

Hope you enjoy this magical month of December... with all the Christmas celebrations, markets and partying! I look forward to putting the tree up next week!