Day 3 of no school. Temperatures are hovering in the 20’s and the icy roads are holding strong. Come on sun!
Attempt number one. Sew right sides together along 3 edges, turn and press. The corners didn’t look crisp. The open edge looked a little wonky as I tried to press in the edges. Adding an envelope flap to a limp noodle left me with a bad feeling. The good news was that I had only cut out two of this design before putting needle and thread to fabric. In the past I would have cut all 24 and then discovered the design didn’t work.
I thought about using interfacing to give it structure. Wonder Under could give me a double sided pocket. Pinking shears on the edges. As I thought about these ideas I also remembered these leaves that Amy had shown on her blog. I gave that a try. Yes. The single layer of batting gave it good heft. Simple construction.
Drawback: the envelope theme no longer works. The envelope flap was going to have the number on it which would tuck back inside the pocket. I’m still thinking about the whole number thing and how to represent the count down on the new design. One idea is to have the ornament be double sided with the number on one side.
Happy with the pocket construction I set to cutting out all my pockets. I limited my pocket palette to 3 colors. Red, Green and Brown. 8 of each. I made patterns for each pocket by cutting the graph paper as I went trying to create a good distribution of sizes. Cutting the fabric and batting was easy since I didn’t have to be exact. Another cheer for this design. I then set up my assembly line at the sewing machine and quilted the pockets. Trimming to size with a pinking shear rotary cutter finished off the production.
check out a project i made for A Laurel Burch Christmas – C&T – 2004 – page 15 (& back cover) – Surprise-a-Day tree calendar – might give you some useful ideas – catherine
Please keep the snow and winter there. Here in NH it has been balmy for a change. I enjoy reading your blog and other women’s inspiring blogs. I just started one so I hope you can check it out.
I’m just in awe of that snow — and the fact that it is so cold and sticking around is incredible! It is quite rare there, no? I hope you (or at least the girls) are enjoying it!
Progress is looking good on the calendar! Glad that leaf post added to your inspiration. You just never know where it will come from, eh?
You could still do your envelope idea. Simply use the reenforced piece the same way you would use a plain piece of fabric. Since it is stiff, it will make adding the other piece on easier. Good Luck!
Wow, I didn’t know there was a pinking shear rotary cutter. It’s looking good!
hooray for snow!!
I can’t wait to see the final advent calendar. I’m so intrigued…
Your snowy landscape is gorgeous and leaving me longing for our upstate NY snowfall – which will come soon enough, I imagine . . .
I love the fabrics you have chosen and can’t wait to see the final product.
Cheers!
If I see one more picture of yards with snow my head will simply EXPLODE!! My A/C ran yesterday to keep us from dying of heat while it is was back to 75 degrees or warmer! Arrgh! But enough of that.
The process is looking good and it’s nice to see someone else struggle with a few mis-steps before hitting on something that works! I thought it was just me!
) I think it’s coming out very nicely. Can’t wait to see more!!
this is so beautiful! i can’t believe your snow… here in what should be snowy NH we have 60F today! ugh. we need our snow!
your advent calendar is stunning and i can’t wait to see how it comes out!
the snow is gorgeous…the calendar looks like it will be fabulous!
oh well, it’s still fun!
i should really follow your lead and do better planning of my projects. i just cut out twenty-four felt envelopes for an advent calendar and am trying to figure out where i’m going to put the numbers (i’d been thinking on the flap, but then i saw that that wouldn’t work…and i have to figure out how they’ll be displayed…sigh. then i need to put the little messages inside — i was thinking of preting on fabric but don’t know if i’ll be able to do that in time, and of course i have all of these ideas for the messages (Scripture, an activity, a directive — i think it’s all going in!)…you see what I mean?
Love the color palette you chose.
What pretty fabrics!