Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Advent Calendar Ala Oh, Fransson!

Here's my version of the advent calendar that I saw at Oh, Fransson!. (You can see my November version here.) Elizabeth is such a precise quilter. Make sure you scroll through her blog--she makes beautiful quilts!


My old advent calendar was missing some pieces, and was probably 7 years old or so. Time for a new one. When I saw Elizabeth's I knew it would work great for my family. I mean, POCKETS that actually hold something?! Brilliant! Also, love the fact that the numbers are jumbled up.

I think I'll be putting in a treat, a scripture verse to read, and the name of a Christmas book for our nightly reading. Hopefully the kiddos will be as excited as I am about it.

The fabric I used is called Frosted Memories from Moda.

This piece was from my stash. I used it for the backing and binding. I'm embarrassed to stay that I've had it for.ev.er! I decided it was high time it got used.


I think the sheet music lines make a nice subtle bit of interest on the binding.


Here are the slight changes I made:
1. I cheated and used 2
charm packs (which are 5 inch pre-cuts) instead of cutting out all those 4.5 inch squares. The charms worked great, but I had to dig into my stash for a few remaining fabrics to finish it off. If you don't have a big stash, I would suggest buying 3 charm packs to get the 96 total squares.
2. I didn't stagger my pockets (my brain can't do staggering) so I used 1.5 inch sashings on all sides.
3. I added a 2 inch border to the whole outside to give it a little more presence.

8 comments:

  1. Emily, what a great calender. I am sure the children will love it. Mine would!

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  2. Hah - this is great. I just bought Moda's Figgy Pudding charm pack to do the same thing. But I wasn't looking forward to the offset sashing. Did you cut your squares down to 4.5" or just use them as 5"? And your sashing - was it 1.5" cut or sewn? It turned out really well and the proportions look great. I found your blog from your etsy site - I am contemplating some train fabric for my grandpa's duvet. He has dementia and one of his strongest memories is working on the steam engines :). Keep up the helpful blog.
    Cheers,
    sherry

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  3. Wow, that is such a neat idea! Love the fabrics you used :)

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  4. I did not cut the charms down--left them 5 inches. The 1.5 inches for the sashing was BEFORE sewing. Good lUck!

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  5. This looks great! I like it better than the original actually. :D I would go your route as well, charms are the perfect answer to this project!

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  6. nice job!! and props for using stash on the back... sometimes you just have to use it up somewhere...

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  7. Em, cute idea! I love the numbers all mixed up. This particular charm pack is fabulous. Not to Christmas-ie, but still very festive. Tiffany

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  8. I am just going to start mine right now! Hopefully I will get it done by Dec 1. I like your charm pack idea- too bad I didn't think of that before buying fabric!

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