04 December 2009

Christmas Advent Calendar, 2.0

"For we have seen his star in the East." Matthew 2:2
There are lots of things I've made through the years, but I can finally share some of them, because they are hanging up in our house!  This is the advent calendar I designed in 2004.  I wanted to make a fun way to count down to Christmas that wasn't directly related to Santa Claus or Christmas Trees.  Thinking about a new star to mark the birth of Christ, I designed this simple advent.  I found a lovely blue wool blend felt, and used that for the background and 24 pockets.   I used a lot of heat n bond to adhere our family name and the numbers to the pockets. all cut from red wool felt. 

I sewed on 24 buttons, with a special button for Christmas eve.  Then, I bonded the felt to a fun red plaid fabric (where I had already sewed on a pocket to hold a dowel) to hide all the sewing from the buttons and pockets. This also made it stronger. 

I made the stars, using off-white and gold felt.  I borrowed my mom's pinking shears to cut the white felt, which gave them some style.  I hand sewed each star together with embroidery floss, and then used my sewing machine to make button holes in each one.


I hand sewed beads to make the Christmas Eve star extra special.


To finish the calendar, I bound the edge with a patchwork strip of gold toned fabric.  This is where the 2.0 comes in.  Last night, I realized a couple of the bottom pockets had not been sewn properly, and that we had lost one of the stars.  I made this before I had learned to bind quilts, and hadn't done the best job of sewing on the binding.  So, I carefully picked off all of the binding, repaired the pockets, made a replacement star, and resewed the binding on properly.  Now it is ready for another 5 years of children loving the count-down  until Christmas. 

Linked to Twelve Crafts Christmas Traditions.

2 happy thoughts:

Louisa said...

I love your Advent calendar! Stars are my favorite Christmas symbol. I really like the idea of button holes in the ornaments. It seems like they are likely to last longer than if they were hanging ornaments. I'll have to add this to my Advent bookmarks. I love making new Advent calendars.

Jocelyn Christensen said...

This is very cool! Found you through Twelve Crafts link-up!

http://beinglds.blogspot.com/2010/11/silhouette-ornaments.html

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