Saturday, November 26, 2011

Advent Calander

With Christmas fast approaching, we are all getting ready. So here is a fun idea I came across a few weeks ago. It's an advent calendar. I just loved the idea and so I made my own with my personal twists. I found the directions difficult to follow, probably because of my lack of sewing knowledge or because it is off a foreign blog. Ether way I decided to post my own tutorial on how I did it. Below are a few different shots of the almost finished calendar.
I hung it in my dinning room. I love the baby cloth pins holding them on the joop twine.
So first I picked out a few different prints from my stash. Then I cut out 24 8x8 squares.
Then cut those squares in half diagonally.
Place two triangles right side together.
Sew down the middle edge with a 1/4 seem allowance.
Now you have a square. Yes, you could have just folded it originally and ironed a seem, but if you want different patterns together do it this way. This one is just a demo.
Now iron seems down flat. Yes tedious, but worth it. It looks so much nicer when your done.
Clip corners. fold in half, and sew down the long side at 1/4 seem. Bring seem to tip at the bottom.
I then ran a quick iron over it lightly to get the shape I wanted without pressing it down.
Flip it over and fold down top, Press with iron.
Sew this folded corner down leaving space to slide string through. Then cut exposed seem down.

When all you cones are done string then on ribbon or twine. I made mine in groups of five, they seem to hang neater this way. I will also be numbering them soon. And to the wonderful purpose of this cute little calendar. I will be putting objects, activities and scripture all speaking of the birth of Christ. We have a wonderful devotional that our Pastor and his family wrote that we will be using along with the calendar. That even got a nice bag to hold it as well. Let the count down begin.