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Starting some Christmas Stitching

Last year I had planned to make advent calendars for my niece and nephew, but of course I left it far too late. So this year I started earlier - hunting on Pinterest and Google for advent calendar ideas. I couldn't find anything that really hit the spot. So decided to design my own. But I didn't really like where I was headed either...I subscribe to the UK Magazine "Love Patchwork and Quilting" (which is fantastic). Last month's issue got lost in the post and I had to have a new one sent - I ended up getting it two weeks later than everyone else. And there inside was the perfect advent calendar. Problem solved!

I have white fabric and backing fabric and I have a stack of red and green fabrics for the pockets. I have big red buttons and I have pom pom trim!

I'm making a few tweaks to the pattern, and I'm hoping to include their names (otherwise they'll get mixed up and there'll be hell on!).

Yesterday I did a cross hatch quilting on the background, just to make it a bit sturdier once I've added weight to the pockets and Ellie-Jo has swung off the bottom of it.... I picked polyester wadding to keep the weight as low as possible. I have remembered why I don't like polyester wadding - I've used practically a whole can of spray adhesive and pins and I'm still getting puckers. Luckily now only small and on the back not the front (I unpicked the mega puckers and that's when I added the pins). I've also started embroidering the numbers for the pockets.


I had some help with the embroidery yesterday evening!


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