A change in advent calendar plans

A while ago, I posted about trying to make an advent calendar. I posted a picture of one that I was trying to copy. Shortly after that, I gave up on it. It just wasn't working out. I still wanted an advent calendar, and thought maybe I'd come back to the puzzle and finish it by next Christmas.

On our No-Church Sunday this week, a friend called me and asked if I'd like to spend the No-Church Sunday at her house making advent calendars out of felt. Of course, yes, that sounds great! She found this advent calendar and its free pattern on the Allsorts craft blog (http://allsorts.typepad.com/allsorts/2007/11/advent-calendar.html):


She made hers like the one pictured on the Allsorts website--white felt with red yarn and red buttons. But she the knitted the little numbers. And she had green and red ribbon that she was going to use for the ribbon in between each pocket.

I took my bin of felt...

--I hoard craft supplies. I get free stuff from people cleaning out their craft rooms. So I have a bin of felt, a bigger bin of small fabric scraps, a bin of yarn, a tin of embroidery floss, a tin of buttons, a box of ribbon, a box of thread, and some little boxes of beads. I did buy some of the things in my collection, but most of it is free stuff people got rid of. So I didn't have to buy anything for this project. I scrounged through my stuff and found things that would work.--

...Anyway, I looked through my felt scraps to see how much I had that would be big enough to use for this project. I decided on reds and pinks. I sewed the first one together. I used light pink embroidery floss. Then I cut out the number 1 from felt and sewed that on. Then I looked through my button box for a good button. I found a white button with shiny red and blue and green speckles. I sewed it on. Here is pocket #1:


I decided that it was very hard to sew numbers and buttons on after sewing up the pocket, so I spent the rest of the time at her house choosing buttons and sewing them on. Her two little boys were very happy to dump out my button box, sort the buttons, help me choose buttons, and squabble over which one had more buttons in his pile. After I came home, I spent the rest of the evening cutting out and sewing on the numbers. I cut each pocket's number(s) to match the button. Now I am in the process of sewing the pockets and stringing them together. I have finished #1 through #12. And here are some pictures:



I am using beads in between each pocket instead of ribbon. I tried ribbon, but it looked too cluttery and kind of took the focus off the cute buttons and numbers.

Here you can see #2's cute red and white button. And the beads in between the pockets.

#5 is one of my favorites. I like the fuchsia color and the burgundy button.


#6 has a cute flower button.


#8 is made out of some of my favorite felt. I think it is very old felt, because it is thick and the color is rich, and I cannot find anything like it anywhere to buy more! It is a maroon color. And the boys helped me pick a cute heart button to put on it.


I think the advent calendar looks good, and is way easier than the other one I was trying to make. Maybe I will make that one into a Christmas wall hanging that is not an advent calendar, since it was just the pockets I couldn't get to work.

So I recommend this pattern. You can go buy stuff, or use up scraps. Both ways turn out cute.