Counting down the days...

Every year we try to find interesting and fun ways for the younger children in our lives to get through their fasting days. And one of our best loved family traditions is our Ramadhan advent.

Over the years we've tried all types of calender, but this year we opted for a wall hanging with nifty pockets to hide a daily treat. In true last minute fashion I was late with my calender this year, So even if you havent made one yet and feel like having a go, its not too late and there are plenty of easy alternatives.

If you want to have a go at making one like ours for next Ramadhan, here's how we did it.

You'll probably need...

• two large pieces of material for the front and back of the calender
• some material scraps for making pockets
• some plain scraps for embroidering numbers onto
• embroidery floss
• lots of patience

In the intrests of being earth friendly, all the material we used was either previously thrifted or recycled from other previously loved things in our life, so have a hunt around and see what you can find insha'allah.

I should also add, that I am by no means an expert seamstress...in fact most of what I create has a distinctly rough and ready feel to it, and thats mainly due to my rough and ready approach to making... what this means of course in real terms is that if I can make it, anyone can!


We took a 30 by 30in pice of plain canvas.

Cut out 30 squarish pices from scraps for pockets, and 30 smaller plain scraps to backstitch our numbers on to (though if i had had some to hand the numbers would defiantely have been done in less labour intensive fabric markers!)

The size of our pockets were determined by how many we could fit on each row (high tech I know!)

5 rows of 6 in our case

After backstitching the numbers we handstitched the smaller squares onto the faces of the pockets and then ironed down roughly a 2cm hem around three edges of each pocket (to make it easier to sew onto the canvas), and a slightly deeper hem along the top of the pocket.

The pockets are then pinned to the canvas, and machine stitched on.

and now with right sides facing, take your canvas with pockets and your contrasting piece for the back and sew around the two sides and bottom, zig-zagging the edges for strength.

along the top edge we turned over the edges of the fabric, and placed two bits of ribbon on either end for ties, then machine stitched the top edge closed.

and there you have it, a simple advent calender that you can fill with treats and small gifts for your special people to enjoy throughout ramadhan insha'allah.