Advent calendar

With the 1. December approaching quickly I am busy finishing my home-sewn Advent calendar.
I made this one for my parents. It's actually a relatively simple design. The ugliest part were the numbers which I tried to stitch with my machine. But they didn't really turn out very nicely. Maybe it would have been better to just draw them onto the fabric with a fabric marker or handstitch them.

Here are the steps how I made it:

1. Cut 2 rectangular pieces of fabric for the background (65X80 cm), cut 4 pieces of rectangular fabric for the pockets (22X52 cm), cut 4 pieces of ribbon in red (52 cm) and 1 piece of green ribbon (65 cm) plus 3 pieces of green ribbon (40 cm), cut 2 trees (16x16 cm) and 2 red ribbons for the tree decoration (16 cm), at last cut two hearts out of felt and 1 piece of red ribbon (24 cm); fold the 4 rectangles for the pockets in the middle facing inside out and iron, then sew the ribbon onto them approx 1 cm from the middle fold using red thread, then close the seams all around except one small gap for turning the inside out using white thread, stitch or paint numbers on the pockets using red thread/paint

2. Sew the ribbon onto the trees using red thread

3. Sew the green ribbon onto the background using green thread approx 5 cm from the top, then sew the first row of pockets onto the background using red thread approx 8 cm underneath the green ribbon using red thread, stitch the actual pockets vertically

4. Continue with the other three rows of pockets leaving 8 cm gaps in between the rows

5-7. Applique the trees onto the pockets/background as shown in the photo

8. Cut a rectangular piece of padding in the same size as the background and iron on

9. Stitch the two background pieces together using white thread and integrate the three green hangers in the top seam (one in the middle and the other two at 8 cm from the side), turn inside out and stitch the seams at 1 cm from the edge, sew the two felt hearts together integrating the hande in the seam and handsew onto the calendar whereever you like it

Now all you have to do is find a nice stick  and fill the pockets with little presents! Happy Advent!

My mother in law made this one for our daughter. It was a massive project with lots of hand stitching involved but the result is truely an eye-catcher! But the work was worth it as we can use the calendars for years now.