Advent Tutorial

Well done Mum, you were right! I was making an advent calender.

For my birthday I was given some lovely Christmas fabric to play along with and because I hadn't been on a sewing machine for yonks I decided a nice simple project would do me nicely.



So I am making up little tiny draw string bags. 96 of the to be exact. That will be 4 lots of advent calenders. I do think they will make some lovely early Christmas pressies!

They are soooo easy and I think they look lovely! I have taken some photos and though you may like a little tutorial.

1. Get out your sewing machine. Don't you just love it!

2. Choose your fabric and cut out 48 rectangles about 9cm x 12cm. I have made mine all different sizes to suit all sorts of goodies!

You could do the bags in the same fabric, or if you are like me, a selection of different patterns and textures. I have decided to make four advent calenders and will use lovely scrummy fabric for half of the bags and some silk christmassy emerald fabric for the other half. Mainly to keep costs down, but also to give the other colours and patterns a chance to shine!

So here is another sneaky preview of my lovely noel fabric!

Beautiful reds and greens.

Lovely festive holly.

Little fairy shoes .... my favourite I think.



Or is my favourite this lovely Nordic pattern. I think so!

 

3. Make a hem on each of the rectangles of about 1cm.

4. On a plain light coloured fabric (I used the back of some stripy scrap material) write on the numbers in your most lovely writing and using a fabric pen. I cheated and used some stamps but I think it looks nice that way .... more consistent!

5. Using pinking sheers cut out the little numbers and use a nice sew them onto half of your hemmed rectangles. I put my numbers in different places. Some at the top, some in the middle and some at the bottom ... it all makes the hunting more fun - don't you agree!

6. Now get a numbered rectangle and a non-numbered rectangle and place them together with the right sides facing and the hems level. Now sew each sack up leaving, remember not to sew up the hem as this will be where the ribbon is threaded through at the end.

7. Now trim all of the threads, use pinking shears to trim all of the seams and trim the corners.

Ahhhh that's better. A nice neat finish!

8. Here are all my bags waiting to be turned .... its time to turn yours aswell.

9. To make the drawstring, thread a blunt large needle (the one you use for sewing up those pesky crochet ends in with) with some glorious festive ribbon or string. Push it through the front channel and then through the back channel. Tie a knot in it and snip off the excess.

10. Yippee, you now have lots of lovely draw string bags.

I don't need to tell you that these could also be made bigger for pump bags, smaller for jewelry ..... you all have your own crafty creative heads to think of the endless possibilities!!!

I'm off to start production line number two - this time with a lovely red fabric.

I am not going to reveal my finished product yet. One reason being it's not ready, but the second reason being it seems like the prefect 1st of December blog. You should wait until then too. I can't wait to see all of your different types of calenders and ways of celebrating advent.

Here is to a hand-made 2012 Christmas! xxxxx Kate xxxxx