1st Christmas Present of 2010

On Sunday I finished making the 1st Christmas Present of 2010.  I should have finished it sooner since it is an Advent Calendar that starts on December 1st and it has to make its way all the way to Oklahoma!  But, oh well.  It will still be fun for the little guy who gets to use it.

I modeled this after one that I used to get to do in college when I worked in a lady's office whose mom had made a similar calendar many years before. The idea is that every day of December leading up to Christmas you get to put an ornament on the tree.  We used safety pins on the original calendar - but those aren't really handy for 4 year olds!  So, I sewed 24 buttons onto the tree to loop the ornaments onto.

The white background is felt (18x24) and so are the star and numbers.  The tree is fabric and so are the pockets.  My wonderful wonderful sister cut out all the numbers because I just couldn't stand the thought of doing it!  (Thanks Ruth!)  I also sewed a second piece of white felt to the back once I had the buttons sewn on.  It helped hide that stitching and then also gave me a place to sandwich the hanging tabs so that the bottom of the tabs were hidden.

The felt was fairly easy to work with, but when I make the next one (next year), I may try fabric (and batting?) instead to make it more quilt-like.