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Description
This is an advent quilting panel I bought to make up some years ago, but finally finished this Christmas. I loved the panel as it was supposed to be created, but me being me I couldn't leave well enough alone and needed a bit more detail.

For each pocket I chose one feature on the picture to embellish. This was mostly achieved by embroidering, beading or adding buttons.

On the background, I embroidered, beaded or added buttons to a few random places, added 3D snowballs and embroidered all of the Christmas lights in on the border of the panel. The latter part was an extremely monotonous and arduous task, but I'm glad I did it in the end. The largest of the stars in the background, the stitching on the snowman's hat and the reflections on the lights were embroidered with glow in the dark white DMC thread, so when you turn the lights off it provides a whole new spectacle.

The other major change I made was to alter the order of the pockets. The original design had them in a haphazard order. My OCD could not handle that (is there any reason advent calendars do this so much??) so I stitched them on in numerical order where possible. The bauble pockets still had to go in the outer positions, but those are in numerical order within themselves.

Aesthetically, the finish is a bit rough. I've only done one quilting panel before and that was a while ago, and have not embroidered in many years, so I'm a bit rusty on my needlework skills. Something I'm going to have to practise. I also have a pretty basic sewing machine, so not having a walking foot made it a bit difficult. I used iron-on wadding to help keep the layers together a bit better while stitching, but its a bit gathered in places.

I'm looking forward to doing more needle work on my year off. Doing this reminded me of how much I missed it.

Hit up this one to see all the details up close:

Description
This is an advent quilting panel I bought to make up some years ago, but finally finished this Christmas. I loved the panel as it was supposed to be created, but me being me I couldn't leave well enough alone and needed a bit more detail.

For each pocket I chose one feature on the picture to embellish. This was mostly achieved by embroidering, beading or adding buttons.

On the background, I embroidered, beaded or added buttons to a few random places, added 3D snowballs and embroidered all of the Christmas lights in on the border of the panel. The latter part was an extremely monotonous and arduous task, but I'm glad I did it in the end. The largest of the stars in the background, the stitching on the snowman's hat and the reflections on the lights were embroidered with glow in the dark white DMC thread, so when you turn the lights off it provides a whole new spectacle.

The other major change I made was to alter the order of the pockets. The original design had them in a haphazard order. My OCD could not handle that (is there any reason advent calendars do this so much??) so I stitched them on in numerical order where possible. The bauble pockets still had to go in the outer positions, but those are in numerical order within themselves.

Aesthetically, the finish is a bit rough. I've only done one quilting panel before and that was a while ago, and have not embroidered in many years, so I'm a bit rusty on my needlework skills. Something I'm going to have to practise. I also have a pretty basic sewing machine, so not having a walking foot made it a bit difficult. I used iron-on wadding to help keep the layers together a bit better while stitching, but its a bit gathered in places.

I'm looking forward to doing more needle work on my year off. Doing this reminded me of how much I missed it.

Hit up this one to see all the details up close: