Project Quilting Off Season Challenge: Happy Holidays

Left: Advent Calendar, 17" x 35", tree and ornaments made circa 1994, the rest made December 2012 

The new season of Project Quilting starts up again in January. To help get us ready for it, Kim of Persimon Dreams posted an off-season challenge:

Quick recap of the challenge: "Happy Holidays" 1. Select a  December or January holiday. 2. Use two different methods of quilting.

When I was a child we had an Advent Calendar. When I was first married, and before I learned to sew or quilt, my husband and I made an Advent Calendar for ourselves based on the one I had as a child. 

I still love the felt ornaments that we made but I thought the burlap background was a little saggy and now that I was a quilter, I really wanted to make it into a quilted piece.

Left: Advent Calendar before

First I removed the felt tree from burlap background because I didn’t want to hand sew the snaps on again.

Then I removed the silver sequin "tinsel" on the tree. I'd forgotten that the tree was made of two pieces of felt, split along the tinsel line.

Next I pinned the tree to the new background then couched some funky thread on the tree. I picked the thread because I liked the variegated colors and I thought the loops resembled Christmas lights. 

I couched the thread before appliqueing the tree to the background so I could tuck the loose ends of the thread under the tree. Because the tree was made of felt and it won’t fray, I didn’t have to turn the edges under.

Detail of ornaments in the pockets

For the pockets I cut 4 strips 12.5” x 3”. I folded the strips lengthwise so they were 12.5” x 1.5”. I sewed them to a piece of 10.5” x 12.5” plain backing fabric then flipped them up so the folded line was the top of the pocket and the seam allowance was now inside the pocket. I folded the edges under and appliquéd the plain background to the new background.

Because this challenge had to include a second method of quilting, I pieced some green fabric with small black stars to the top and bottom of the background.

Detail of ornaments on the tree 

I basted the quilt top to the backing fabric and the batting. I echo quilted around the tree and quilted vertically on the calendar part to create the individual pockets. While quilting I also couched a funky green thread around the calendar part.

I finished with the same green fabric for the binding then moved the felt ornaments into their new pockets.

To see the other entries go to the Happy Holidays page.