Stocking Advent Calendar

About a year and a half ago I snatched up this "Ready Set Snow" charm pack (on sale!) by Me and My Sisters (I pretty much love all their fabric) with the intention to make some kind of Christmas advent calendar out of it.

I searched and searched looking for a cute idea and finally found THIS tutorial and decided it would be perfect!

And here I am, over a year later, with a finished (if not somewhat nontraditional) "advent calendar."  I ironed every single piece to freezer paper to make the cutting easier, and I used No Sew Heat and Bond  to attach the numbers (I even printed the numbers onto the Heat and Bond paper so I didn't have to trace anything).   I figured if I was going to make 24, I might as well take lots of shortcuts.  :)  There was lots of handwork (cutting and turning things inside out) done in front of the TV with the Hubby watching football and such.  I think that's why it went so quickly.  I could work on it pretty much anytime.  Even though I had to do each step 24 times.

I used ric rac and baby clothes pins for hanging.  Aren't they cute?

Now I just need to figure out what to put in them and where to hang them!  I'm so excited to have them ready early for Christmas this year.  Last year I was so busy having two babies around Christmas time, so I plan to make up for all the lack of Christmasy things this time around!  :)

Busy Busy Busy

Wow.  I have a lot of little finishes lately.  Back when I was teaching, it would have taken me months to do the same amount of sewing related things I've done in the past two weeks.  And I have two babies.  Am I doing something wrong?

I suppose most of these projects are fairly small.

I made this super cute block:

I've been looking for some kind of block of the month that I could use as interchangable decorations each month.  I'm a little late in the game, but I found this Hello Sun quilt along and I kind of love it.  I've also been looking for a good excuse to try this method of applique.  Maybe I will make all the blocks into a quilt someday.  And it was fast.  Once I made my panel of yellow, the whole thing came together pretty quickly.  Thank heavens for Heat and Bond. :)

I printed THIS little subway art to go with it.  I've got the other 11 stashed away for future use too.  SO easy.  I love it.

I also finished my growth charts.  You can see more of those HERE.

Then I started working on my stocking advent calendar thinking I would just work on it here and there over the next month or so.  Whoops.  I FINISHED it!  I still need to take some pictures and write a post about it though (maybe tomorrow?).  It's super cute.  I think I finished it so fast because there was lots of handwork to it - LOTS of cutting and turning fabric inside out and stuff.  I could do that in the evenings while I watched TV or football with the Hubby.  Thank heavens for Freezer Paper. :)

 

AND I made two blocks for my Storm at Sea quilt.  These were test blocks to check my cutting measurements and learn how to do freezer paper piecing.  I think I've about got the hang of it.  They take a little while to make, but they are fun and should keep me busy for awhile.

Linking up:

WIP: Growth Charts and Some Fabric Selecting

I finished quilting my growth charts!  I want the applique to stand out from the quilting, so I am going to add the letters and numbers last.  This is what I've got so far (times two):

Here are the backs.  I just pieced together some random leftover fabric.  Even though probably no one will ever see the backs.  :D

I quilted them with straight lines one inch apart.  I still don't have a walking foot, so I've resigned to always having wrinkles and pulls from using my regular foot to do straight line quilting.  I tell myself that it looks cool and that I did it that way on purpose - I was vigilant about making sure I changed directions with each line.  Does anyone know where to find a walking foot that fits a Bernina Activa that isn't FREAKING EXPENSIVE?!?!

We've been watching a lot of football lately, so I decided to sew the binding on by hand during games.  I've got the first one finished, now onto the second one!

I have all the applique pieces fused and cut.  The numbers will run along the skinny side, marking each foot.

And the names will run along the fat side.  I haven't decided yet if I am going to do something about the holes that are supposed to be in the Os and As and such.

ALSO.  It's almost time to get started on the stocking advent calendar I am planning to make.  I got out the fabric today and sorted it, just for fun:

I also pulled out this fabric.  I want to make some kind of skirt out of it, but I don't really know how to go about it.  Any suggestions?

I decided to go with this design for my Storm at Sea quilt.  Except some of the white spaces will be more grayish, cuz I don't have enough white.  And I'm going to add orange. :)   I'm SUPER excited to get going on this one!

And there you have it!  I actually have more than one work in progress today - even though I generally tend to only work on one project at a time.

Linking up!