Holiday Gifts to You: Advent Christmas Ornaments

Advent Christmas Ornaments, Designed by April Adams, JANDA Bend Quilts

Hello, Everyone! It is my turn to share my gift on the Holiday Gifts to You Blog Hop brought to you by Partners in Design! My gift it a free Advent Christmas Ornaments pattern. It is made in advent colors and texts that are advent candle names. The ornaments finish at 6" square.

My family lights advent candles each of the four weeks in advent. In our tradition, each the four advent candles have a name. There are 3 purple candles and 1 lighter purple or pink candle (the Joy candle.)

• Week 1 is Hope.
• Week 2 is Peace.
• Week 3 is Joy.
• Week 4 is Love.

Each week, we light the previous weeks' candles and a new one. I love this tradition. However, after we blow out the candles each week, I always feel a bit let down because we won't light them again for another week. That is why I decided to design the Advent Christmas Ornaments. My idea is to light the new candle and then hang the advent ornament with the same name on the Christmas Tree that same night.

You can download the pattern by clicking the box below. It will free until after the Blog Hop!

Download Advent Christmas Ornaments Pattern

For my fabrics, I chose batiks in Advent purple colors from the Artisan Batiks collection by Lunn Studios, Robert Kaufman Fabrics. I chose a different light and dark purple for each ornament. My choices are below.

Fabric Choices

The first step was to print the Advent Candle names onto printable fabric. You need to use a color inkjet printer to print the names. Printable fabric does not work in Laser printers. If you do not have access to an inkjet printer, the names can be traced and embroidered, or you might use applique or a fussy cut fabric for the centers. (I think it would fun to use children's names in the center as well.) It is easy to write your own text. Just write your prefered words in an appropriate size using a word processing program, then print the words on printable fabric with your inkjet printer.

The pattern includes the ready to print ornament names. You simple print them on 8 1/2" by 11" printable fabric sheets following the manufacturer's instructions. Be sure to follow their colorfast directions as well. I recommend that you turn the steam off your iron during ornament construction so that you do not smear the color.

Once the names are printed, use a ruler to cut the squares so that the text is along a diagonal. I used my Quilt in a Day Fussy Cut Ruler (not an affiliate link). See photo.

Fussy Cut the Ornament Name.

Here Are All of the Ornament Names.

Now it is time cut the other ornament block pieces. Please refer to the pattern for instructions. I cut my pieces using the Accuquilt 6" Block Mix and Match Qube. The instructions tell you which specific dies I used. They tell you how to cut the pieces using a rotary cutter.

After the pieces are cut, lay out the pieces to form a block. Sew the middle row and the two outer rows. Then sew the rows together to complete the pieced block. See photos.

Lay Out the Block.

Sew the Rows.

Sew the Rows Together.

Next, layer the parts of the ornament. First a 6 1/2" square of batting, then a 6 1/2" square of backing fabric (right side up), a loop of ribbon with the ends of the ribbon toward the top of the ornament, and finally the pieced block (right side down). Check to make sure that the text will be readable when hung by the ribbon loop.

Batting

Backing Right Side Up and Ribbon Loop

Pieced Block Right Side Down

Sew around the block with a 1/4" seam and leave a 3" section open so that the block can be turned right side out. Iron the open seam closed and topstitch around the edge of the ornament. This will sew the seam closed. 

Finally, use a walking foot to quilt the ornament. I stitched in the ditch.

Topstitch and Quilt in the Ditch.

Repeat for all four ornaments. Enjoy!

All Four Advent Christmas Ornaments

We hope you are enjoying our Holiday Gifts to You Blog Hop. It is just our way of saying thanks for your participation in our annual Quilt Alongs.  Partners in Design appreciate you!

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Here is the Bog Hop Schedule. Enjoy!

Sun  Nov 17   Inquiring Quilter
Mon Nov 18   Sandra Healy Designs 
Tue  Nov 19   Powered by Quilting
Wed Nov 20   JANDA Bend Quilts 
Thu  Nov 21   Pretty Piney
Fri Nov 22     Kathleen McMusing 
Sat Nov 23     Slice of Pi Quilts
Sun Nov 24   Sandy Star Designs
Mon Nov 25 Sparkily Blog

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This post was first published at JANDA Bend Quilts.