Executing a concept

Sometimes I get these ideas in my head - and then start flying without a net, or creating without a pattern.

I've been wanting to do a "countdown calendar" since my son was born in 2005. See - my husband, my son, and I all share February as our birth month. Hubby was born at the end of the month, so he has always celebrated all month long. Piggybacking on this, I decided that all three of us should celebrate the month, and decorate the house accordingly.

Being February, I wanted to avoid the hearts and flowers of Valentine's Day, but wanted something bright and cheerful. I started by making a denim tablecloth and bordering it with large squares of multi-colored fun fabric - in lime, yellow, red, orange and bright blue. We have used that as our Tablecloth of the Month for 2 years now.

So the countdown calendar had to be something as bright and fun. I had some remnants, and went looking for more of the same fabrics. I ended up with complimentary fabrics and was able to put together most of the project yesterday.

Each day is a 3 inch square pocket - with special Happy Birthday fabric for the pockets of our birthdays. I have number and letter beads to hang from the points of each flap, and the whole thing will have a lime green binding around it and hang on the wall in our dining room. We plan to put little notes or gifts in the pockets and open them up as the month goes along. The all red pocket on the bottom of the 2nd column is Valentine's Day - it will have a little heart charm added to it. I also plan to make a little pouch/pocket that will button onto the bottom with a "29" on it that we can hang every 4 years.

I have never worked with prairie points - so this is new for me. I chose not to topstitch them as the piece was already rather busy and I did not want the distraction of the extra stitches. "Most" of them are folded and pressed straight. A few went wonky in the assembly process.

The only other thing that I did that I would do differently was that I added 1/4" to the height of the blocks that the pockets are stitched to (each pocket is lined) - so you can see a bit of that out from under the corners of the prairie points. Not having worked with those, and wanting to leave a bit of room for large (and small) fingers to get into the pockets, I thought it would be a good idea. In hindsight, I would not do that. Luckily I had enough of the blue stars to use for those squares instead of the scraps I was planning to use - so at least it looks coordinated.

I will post pictures later this week or early next week when it is all ready to hang.