Make a Merry & Bright Advent Calendar with Fabric Folded Pockets and No-Binding Technique

Make a Merry & Bright Advent Calendar with Fabric Folded Pockets and No-Binding Technique

Make a Merry & Bright Advent Calendar with a convenient pre-printed fabric panel by Dani Mogstad for Riley Blake Designs! Sew this quick and easy Advent Calendar with fabric folded pockets and our no-binding technique! Plus add holiday shimmer when stitching your Advent Calendar with Metallic Threads!

Advent Calendar Sewing Supplies

• One NEW! Advent Calendar Pre-Printed Fabric Panel
• 1/2 yd. Red Cotton Canvas Fabric – for backing
• 1/4 yd. Treetop Green Confetti Cotton Solid Fabric – for rod pocket
  
• 1 yd. Pellon White Easy Knit Interfacing
• Clover’s NEW! Wonder Pins
• Clover’s Wonder Clips
• Clover’s Stiletto/Awl
• Clover’s Pen-Style Chaco Liner
• Clover’s Heart Shaped Pins
• Clover’s Hot Ruler
• Clover’s Supersize 5-in-1 Sliding Gauge
• Clover’s 3/8″ Fusible Web Tape
• Clover’s Repositionable Seam Guide
• Schmetz Chrome Denim Needle, Sz. 90
• Tailor’s Clapper
• Eze-View Pressing Cloth
• June Tailor’s Quilter’s Starch Savvy
• Open Toe Presser Foot
• Rotary Cutter, Mat, Ruler, and 45 mm Pinking Blade
• Standard Sewing Thread
• Optional: Metallic Threads and Schmetz Chrome Jeans/Denim Needle, size 100
• Optional: One Yard 1/4″-5/8″ Ribbon
• Optional: Craft Felt Scraps
• Clover’s Point 2 Point Turner
• Iron

Make a Merry & Bright Advent Calendar Sewing Tutorial

Approximate Finished Size: 18″w x 17″ tall.

All seam allowances are 1/2″.

Prepare Fabrics

Prepare all fabrics for Advent Calendar sewing and assembly by pressing and starching with June Tailor’s Quilter’s Starch Savvy.

Press Interfacing to Panel Back

• Cut one 21″ x 43″ rectangle Pellon White Easy Knit Interfacing.

• Using Eze-View Pressing Cloth, press Easy Knit interfacing to wrong side of Advent Calendar Pre-Printed Fabric Panel, following manufacture’s instructions.

Cut Fabrics

• Using Rotary Cutter, Mat & Ruler cut out Advent Calendar around all four edges, cutting along outer printed line. Remove selvedges and set aside for later use.

• Cut one 18″ x 20″ rectangle Red Cotton Canvas Fabric – for backing.

• Cut one 6″ x 17″ rectangle Treetop Green Confetti Cotton Solid Fabric – for rod pocket.

Create Advent Calendar Front

 ç

• To create pocket rows, fold top Merry Christmas heading to wrong side –wrong sides together – folding along printed line above pockets 1 through 6. Press.

• Fold top Merry Christmas heading –right side up with right sides together – meeting printed line above pockets 1 through 6; to printed line below heading. Press with Tailor’s Clapper – to flatten seam.

• Press on wrong side with Tailor’s Clapper – to flatten seam.

• Clip all pocket layers together, along side seams, using Wonder Clips.

• Continue creating pocket rows: Fold top heading to wrong side –wrong sides together – folding along printed line above pockets 7 through 12. Press with Tailor’s Clapper – to flatten seam.

• Fold top heading –right side up with right sides together – meeting printed line above pockets 7 through 8; to printed line below pockets 1 through 6. Press with Tailor’s Clapper – to flatten seam.
• Clip all pocket layers together, along side seams, using Wonder Clips.

• Continue creating pocket rows: Fold top heading to wrong side –wrong sides together – folding along printed line above pockets 13 through 18. Press with Tailor’s Clapper – to flatten seam.

• Fold top heading –right side up with right sides together – meeting printed line above pockets 13 through 18; to printed line below pockets 7 through 13. Press with Tailor’s Clapper – to flatten seam.
• Clip all pocket layers together, along side seams, using Wonder Clips.

• Continue creating pocket rows: Fold top heading to wrong side –wrong sides together – folding along printed line above pockets 19 through 24. Press with Tailor’s Clapper – to flatten seam.

• Fold top heading –right side up with right sides together – meeting printed line above pockets 19 through 24; to printed line below pockets 13 through 18. Press with Tailor’s Clapper – to flatten seam.
• Clip all pocket layers together, along side seams, using Wonder Clips.

• Pin-baste through all layers with Clover’s NEW! Wonder Pins!

Add holiday shimmer and stitch vertical pocket lines with Metallic Threads and Schmetz Chrome Jeans/Denim Needle, size 100!

• Attach Open Toe Presser Foot to sewing machine and set for a straight stitch with 3.0 stitch length.
• Stitch on vertical printed lines – to form Advent Calendar pockets.

Add additional holiday shimmer and double-stitch or triple-stitch multiple rows of vertical pocket lines with Metallic Threads!

• Baste side seams to hold pocket layers in place, using a Stiletto/Awl to help in guiding pockets under presser foot.

Create Advent Calendar Back with Rod Pocket Hanger

• Press 1/4″ to wrong side – along short ends of  6″ x 17″ rectangle of  Green Cotton Solid Fabric – for rod pocket.

• Press under a second 1/4″ along short ends – creating a double folded edge.

• Insert a new Schmetz Chrome Denim Needle, Sz. 90 and stitch short ends of rod pocket.

• Press rod pocket, wrong sides together, meeting long edges.

• Using a Chaco Liner, mark a line 1/2″ above folded line – on wrong side of rod pocket.

• Place rod pocket rectangle to center top of Red Cotton Canvas backing fabric, right sides together. Pin.
  

• Stitch along marked line.

• Fold rod pocket right sides together. Pin through all layers along top edge.

• Baste rod pocking to baking, along top edge only, with 1/4″ seam.

• Meeting right sides together, place Advent Calendar front to Advent Calendar back.

• Using a Chaco Liner and Supersize 5-in-1 Sliding Gauge, mark a 6″ opening at center lower edge – for later turning Advent Calendar right sides out.

• Fuse a 6″ length of 3/8″ Fusible Web Tape along lower edge on right side of backing fabric – between marked lines.

• Clip all layers together, around all four outer edges, using Wonder Clips.

• Position Seam Guide on bed of machine – at 1/2″ seam allowance.
• Stitch along printed seam line along top edge and bottom edge, leaving 6″ opening at bottom – for turning.

• “Wrap” seams –along stitching– folding seams towards project. Stitch side seams catching top and bottom seam allowances within seams.

• Trim, or grade, seam allowances at corners.

• Turn Advent Calendar right sides out, through lower opening.

• Remove paper backing from Fusible Web Tape, and press seam closed along lower edge

Stitch an Attached Date Marker

• Cut out printed Santa motif from selvage (or any one printed motif of your choosing), cutting any shape you’d like and allowing for approx. 3/8″ seam allowances – around all outside edges.
• Cut out one or two craft felt shapes – the same size and shape as printed motif cutout.

• Using Rotary Cutter, Mat, Ruler, and 45 mm Pinking Blade, trim shape leaving 1/4″ seam allowances.

• Edgestitch around all shape edges, inserting one end of a 30″ length of ribbon – into top of motif – before stitching top seam.

Use a Point 2 Point Turner to assist with tucking ribbon into top opening of date marker, prior to stitching seam.

• Hand stitch opposite ribbon end to back of Advent Calendar.

• Tuck Date Marker Motif into pocket – to track December days leading up to Christmas Eve.

• Or, tuck a special treat, or daily devotional, into each pocket!

Advent Calendar Sewing Supplies

• One NEW! Advent Calendar Pre-Printed Fabric Panel
• 1/2 yd. Red Cotton Canvas Fabric – for backing
• 1/4 yd. Treetop Green Confetti Cotton Solid Fabric – for rod pocket
  
• 1 yd. Pellon White Easy Knit Interfacing
• Clover’s NEW! Wonder Pins
• Clover’s Wonder Clips
• Clover’s Stiletto/Awl
• Clover’s Pen-Style Chaco Liner
• Clover’s Heart Shaped Pins
• Clover’s Hot Ruler
• Clover’s Supersize 5-in-1 Sliding Gauge
• Clover’s 3/8″ Fusible Web Tape
• Clover’s Repositionable Seam Guide
• Schmetz Chrome Denim Needle, Sz. 90
• Tailor’s Clapper
• Eze-View Pressing Cloth
• June Tailor’s Quilter’s Starch Savvy
• Open Toe Presser Foot
• Rotary Cutter, Mat, Ruler, and 45 mm Pinking Blade
• Standard Sewing Thread
• Optional: Metallic Threads and Schmetz Chrome Jeans/Denim Needle, size 100
• Optional: One Yard 1/4″-5/8″ Ribbon
• Optional: Craft Felt Scraps
• Clover’s Point 2 Point Turner
• Iron

Join the Nancy Zieman Productions 2020 Table Runner Sewing Challenge October 1–29, 2020!

You’re invited to join, anytime, by stitching a table runner in any color palette, featuring any sewing, quilting, or machine embroidery techniques. Finished Challenge Table Runners must fit on a kitchen or dining table—use your imagination! Enter one table runner that has been sewn within the last year and has not been entered into a previous Nancy Zieman Productions Table Runner Sewing Challenge. Finished Table Runner photos due this Thursday, October 1, 2020 ! Find all challenge details in our October 1, 2020 blog posting. You could win a prize from one of our generous 2020 Table Runner Sewing Challenge Sponsors!

For a chance to be the random winner of a Clover’s Pen-Style Chaco Liner from Clover, please share comment below about our Advent Calendar Tutorial or about your Holiday sewing plans!

Happy Stitching!

Team Nancy Zieman

Nancy Zieman Productions. LLC.

Stitch it! Sisters is a production of NZ Productions LLC. Content in this feed is © copyright 2020 by Nancy Zieman Productions, LLC and may not be republished without written permission. You’re welcome to forward the email to a friend or colleague but it’s not okay to add the RSS feed automatically as content on a blog or other website. The FTC requires us to tell you that Nancy Zieman Productions, LLC has provided products by other companies in the course of doing business. The FTC requires us to advise you to take this information into consideration when reading this posting.

Make sure you are subscribed to Nancy Zieman Productions, LLC enews mailing list so you won’t miss a thing. Sign up at nancyzieman.com/blog/enews. And join us on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest!