Tree Advent Calendar..tutorial

As promised, here's a tutorial for a lovely Christmas Tree Advent Calendar....I have made so many of these for presents or just lovely to make for yourself...little ones love them and look forward to seeing what little treats are in the pockets each day of Advent....

First you need to make a pattern for the tree...
I'm hoping you can print this pattern out from here, so that you can draw up your pattern...if not, let me know and I will email you a PDF file to print out......you may even be able to follow this as it is here...as you can see here, it's just a pyramid shape of 3" squares... the hearts are just big enough to fit on each sq..

With your paper pattern, cut out a front and a back, also batting the same size..

I like to use a plain background fabric so that the red and green hearts stand out..

With your long ruler and your choice of making tool ...mark in the squares as shown in the pattern..remember to have the squares in a building brick format....except for the last row and the trunk, where the centre Sq's line up .... refer to pattern.

Layer and sandwich the front, back and batting......pin well to hold in place....

and machine stitch down the lines through all three layers...

It should finish up stitched like this...

Cut enough 2" binding to go around the tree and stitch in place...you can just nick the corner, or cut your binding on the bias...I just cut mine straight...Turn binding to the back and hand stitch down..

With the heart shape template , cut 25 hearts in Christmas fabric and 25 in backing fabric ..

Place a backing fabric and Christmas fabric heart right side together ...machine stitch around leaving a little opening at one side to turn through to the right side...press hearts.

Applique the 25 hearts to the tree on each sq...leave the top of hearts free for little hands to reach in for a little treat..

All you need to do now is trim the tree...you can add bells, bows, little charms, braid, you can get stick on numbers for the days from scrap book suppliers...the choice is yours....

Oh, nearly forgot...attach a hanging ribbon or ring at the top of the tree at the back .....Enjoy!

I would love to give credit to someone for this pattern...but I have had this pattern for so long, I don't even remember where I got it from...If anyone knows please let me know too.....♥