Advent Calendar Day 5

The pocket for Day 5 of my elder daughter's Advent Calendar contained a honeycomb fabric bauble I made for her tree. As a bauble it would not have fitted in the pocket, so I made it fold flat then fold out to the bauble shape, fastened with a press stud (snap fastener).

Day 5 pocket featuring baubles

Fabric honeycomb bauble

Fabric honeycomb bauble which folds flat
when the snap fastener hidden in a honeycomb is undone.

While we watched online, as she removed the packet from the pocket, I asked her what the picture was on the pocket. She noted it was baubles but decided the parcel was too flat to be a bauble. It was so funny watching her amazement as she unwrapped it and unfolded the honeycomb bauble into a ball shape, her eyes went wide!

Advent Calendar Day 1

This year, my elder daughter is away from home for Advent and Christmas and due to the pandemic, we may not be able to visit her for Christmas as planned. So in September I started planning a surprise Advent Calendar for her which would bring a little of her family home to her new abode in York (she is singing as a choral scholar at York Minster - at least we can see her when they live stream the sung services on YouTube). 

My girls shared a bought cloth Advent Calendar for much of their childhood, each day taking it in turns to take a character from the pocket and place it in the Nativity scene. 

We have just hung that Advent Calendar up ready for Mary to be placed in the scene.

I decided to make a new cloth Advent Calendar specially for my elder daughter and fill the pockets with gifts for her Christmas tree. I bought some Advent Calendar ribbon, some fabric and had fun designing and sewing the new cloth calendar.

The completed Advent Calendar, hanging on a wooden dowel in our home before it was posted to my elder daughter with instructions not to open the parcel until 1 December.

All the pockets filled with little numbered parcels (each gift was wrapped in brown paper). Three parcels were too large so I put numbered brown cards in those pockets instead and the related parcels were also labelled with the number.

Thanks to video call technology we had the fun of watching her open the large brown paper package (not tied up with string) on 1 December and hanging the Advent Calendar on a bar in front of the fireplace (not in use) in the house where she is staying.

The Advent Calendar with pockets filled, ready for opening the first parcel

Day 1 pocket

Day 1 parcel revealed the first of the Christmas tree decorations we had made for her.

Christmas Teddy cross stitch, stitched by my younger daughter and assembled by me

Christmas Teddy cross stitch, surrounded by tartan and poinsettia

Teddy with drum and trumpet on the back of the cross stitch teddy

She was delighted with this - she remembered the cross stitch kit (the girls had one each but she had never stitched hers, so it was returned to her complete for hanging on her Christmas tree while the other one will also be stitched to hang on our tree).

Peggy Sue's birthday celebrations

The day after I returned from Vancouver, Jocelyn collected me and my younger daughter and we traveled to Lorraine's home to help celebrate Peggy Sue's birthday.  Peggy Sue has featured on my blog before, she is an antique wooden Schoenhut doll with some character.  Lorraine blogs about her on both her 'two many dolls' and 'Sewing for Sasha' blogs.  Jocelyn brought Lissy and Gaby, we brought Laura, Florence, Miranda, Edmund and Betsy.  Betsy?  Yes, Betsy, my Schoenhut doll (who came from Lorraine during the summer). I'll tell you more about her in another post.

The girls brought the Ponfa pram with them to show their friends along with a gift from Canada for Peggy Sue.  And Laura had brought something for Henry from Rome.

Lorraine blogged about Peggy Sue's party immediately afterwards but it is only now, a month later, that I've found a moment to go through my photos of our fun afternoon and assemble my blog post.

Laura wheeled the pram with the present for Peggy Sue

Edmund was looking interested in the present which Princess Addison had brought for Peggy Sue

Yes, of course you can unwrap it Peggy Sue" said Laura and Betsy (who was wearing a lilac dress).  Edmund was keen to see Peggy Sue unwrap her gift so he sat down beside Princess Addison to watch.

Peggy Sue started to unwrap the parcel

"Its beautiful fabric" exclaimed Peggy Sue.  "Yes", said Betsy, "my new mum brought it for you from the amazing Dressew shop in Vancouver"

"Thank you Betsy, Laura, Miranda and Florence for my lovely fabric" said Peggy Sue

"I'm looking forward to seeing what my mum will make for me from my new fabric"

Lissie and Gaby (Jocelyn's girl) handed Peggy Sue a very pretty parcel, which was tied with a lovely ribbon

"Oh how pretty" said Peggy Sue

Peggy Sue read the card from Lissy and Gaby

She was a bit overwhelmed to receive such lovely gifts

"For me?  Wow, this is fabulous, I have never had a modern outfit like this before" exclaimed Peggy Sue.  "Thank you so much Gaby and Lissy"

Lissy, Florence, Henry and Anne-Marie were pleased to see Peggy Sue enjoying her gifts.  Lexie and Jenny were so pleased Peggy Sue liked the fabric they had chosen for her in Dressew in Vancouver, they were still feeling a bit tired from the long journey.

Peggy Sue discovered a box of chocolates in the third package which came from her friend Princess Addison

Little Owen was there like a flash when he saw the chocolates!

"Thank you Princess Addison for my yummy chocolates" said Peggy Sue

While Peggy Sue was entertaining her guests we enjoyed a tea party with plenty of delicious cakes and sandwiches

This was followed by Laura giving Henry his Roman gift, that follows in the next blog post.