Knitted Nativity (Jean Greenhowe)

I had not done any knitting for years. But I'd hankered after a knitted Nativity set since seeing one at a friend's house, and tracked down the pattern book, Jean Greenhowe's Christmas Special, on Amazon. I was given it for my birthday in April 2016, and bought plenty of double knitting yarn in a variety of colours, so I could start in May.

I began with one of the three magi (wise men), for no particular reason. Almost all the basic figures are the same, so I took it slowly and followed instructions carefully. The one thing I changed was to make all the skin tones olive or brown, suitable for characters from the Middle East and Asia, rather than pink, as suggested in the patterns.

I was told to 'block' the cloak by dampening it in water and the pinning it to the figure overnight. I didn't much like doing this, but I was pleased that I took the time to sort out my bobble-headed pins, which have been immensely useful in other projects.

I'm not convinced blocking made a great deal of difference to the cloak, so I didn't do it for all the others.

Jean Greenhowe patterns, I know from experience, are very well written, explaining each step carefully. I'm not good at thinking in 3D and there were times when I was bewildered, wondering how a particular piece was going to work out. This, for instance, was what the wise man's gift looked like after the knitting:

However, when rolled up and lightly stitched, it all made sense:

The hat was even more ingenious but I followed instructions, and was delighted with the result:

I decided to make the pink/red wise man next.  I thought he looked somewhat oriental in his dress, so made his skin tone a little yellower. I also decided to make him a bit shorter than the first king. The pattern had all the standing figures the same height, and that felt unrealistic. So I reduced the number of rows in the main body and the cloak, and it worked well.

Here are the two wise men side by side, to show the difference.

I next embarked on a shepherd. He was similar to make, with a simple headdress and a staff made from yarn wrapped around a straw. I wasn't sure how that would turn  out either, but followed the directions carefully, and was pleased with the result.  I followed my first shepherd with a lamb, which was quick and easy to make:

By now I felt ready to embark on the most important characters in the scene.  The manger looked straightforward and quick, but was in fact quite difficult to knit. Not that the pattern itself posed any complications. But it used two strands of double knitting, which was very tight to work with. Still, the effect was good and it was worth the problems. The yellow blanket (supposedly straw) is removable.

Knitting the Baby didn't take long, but my bugbear is always facial features, particularly mouths. That's no problem with the standing figures who all have beards, so all they needed was eyes and a hint of nose.  I wasn't happy with the features on either Mary or Baby Jesus, but they worked as a group with the manger:

I liked the adaptability so that the Baby could be removed from the manger and placed in Mary's arms:

Time for another shepherd, I decided, and I wanted to make him shorter than the first one; perhaps a shepherd boy, I thought at first. But shepherd boys at the time of the Nativity would have worn shorter clothes, and wouldn't have had beards. So I made a shorter shepherd:

I should perhaps have made him a bit thinner too, as he looks rather dumpy next to the first shepherd:

By this stage I had realised that I wanted a donkey in my Nativity scene. After much research, I discovered that Jean Greenhowe had created a pattern for one in her 'Christmas Treasures' booklet, separate from the original. I found it second-hand (though in excellent condition) on Amazon, and embarked on the donkey.

I'm glad I'd done the other figures first, as it was one of the most complex figures I've ever made. There are several different parts, and at times I was almost in despair.

However, it was worth the struggle.  I was very pleased indeed with the donkey when it was complete:

By this time it was mid-October, and I'd wanted to finish my set by the end of October, if at all possible.  I'd completed Joseph, so there was one more wise man - the yellow and orange one - who made a nice finale to my project.

Of course nobody knows how many wise men there were, and most likely they visited the Holy Family a couple of years after the Nativity rather than being present with the shepherds.  I'm sure there were many more than two shepherds too.

But any Nativity scene used as decoration in the Christmas season is representative only, and on the whole I was quite pleased with the display:

We kept the wise men separate, although on the same table, and I thought they looked surprisingly effective:

The whole scene, finally, bathed in sunlight one morning in December:

Christmas Eve and our latest newsletter

Continuing the theme of a fairly low-key Christmas, I didn't make mincemeat or Christmas puddings this year, because we still had some left from last year. I did make mince pies earlier this week, and our usual traditional Christmas lunch is currently in the oven, to be cut and refrigerated tonight, re-heated tomorrow along with cooking roast potatoes and carrots and brussels sprouts, and so on.

I iced our cake yesterday, but since it looks much the same as it always does, though rather less tidy (since I put marzipan only on the top) I haven't taken a photo yet.

Thank you so much to all who were concerned and prayed for our granddaughter Esther after my last post; within a few days she was home and free from infection, so we are very thankful and relieved. They are remaining in the UK for Christmas, with other relatives visiting.

Meanwhile our tree has continued to suffer from the cats' enthusiasm. Alex looks rather pleased with himself here:

It's currently standing, however, and has done for a couple of days, so perhaps they have finally lost interest.

One entirely new thing that happened this year was that Richard was co-opted as 'Santa' for a couple of performances of 'The Snowman' by Little Muse Theatre.  I didn't see the show this year, not having a small child to take, but I gather it went well. He wondered if our grandson would have recognised him; when I saw the photos, I'm pretty sure I would not have recognised him before he spoke!

It's been a strange week. The sky has mostly been grey, and there has been a lot of rain - more than we can remember in some years, although statistics online show that December is usually rather a wet month in Cyprus. Sheila and I didn't walk on Thursday as it had rained all night, and hadn't stopped by the time we usually go out.

But this morning it was clearer, so despite the trail being a bit soggy in places we did our usual 4km walk, and saw that the Salt Lake was looking quite full once more.

And finally, here's the link to this year's family newsletter.

Wishing all who see this a joyful and peaceful Christmas, as we celebrate again the birth of the world's most important Baby, and every blessing for 2017.

Half-way through Advent ... and a baby

I made this year's Christmas cake at the start of November. But the sun was still shining, and there was no urgency to do anything else related to Christmas. I still have quite a large tub of mincemeat which I made last year, and one remaining Christmas pudding, both in the fridge. Since most of the family won't be coming here for Christmas this year, we won't need more than that.

I decided that Thursday would be the day for putting up our tree.  My small friends were here for the morning, so they enthusiastically sorted and placed the branches. I roughly strung the lights, and then the children hung up as many decorations as they could.

I'm not at all obsessive or perfectionist about the tree, and thought the final result looked pretty good:

Alex, however, had other ideas:

I had to pick up a prone tree twice during that afternoon, resulting in it now looking like this:

So long as the decorations are on the floor, the cats leave the tree alone. I may try to put them back again when they're not looking.

The girls were also quite excited about setting out my knitted nativity figures. They thought the coffee table would work well:

The wise men (or magi or kings) shouldn't really appear in the same tableau, but I didn't really want to put them somewhere else in the room, so we put them on the far edge of the table:

Oddly enough, other than a brief investigation, the cats haven't taken any notice of this. Here's the whole thing, in a little patch of starlight. Well, it's really sunlight, but the sun is, after all, a star.

Christmas is, of course, about the birth of the most important Baby who ever lived. But in our family, we have also been looking forward to the birth of our first granddaughter, who was due on Christmas Eve. She's the reason that her parents and brother are not coming to Cyprus for Christmas this year.

However she decided to put in an appearance a couple of weeks early, so that when we woke up on Friday morning, we had the exciting news of Esther's arrival. Here's a photo taken today of the four of them:

Although she doesn't have jaundice, she has tested positive for a Strep-B infection, which can be quite dangerous in newborns, so she and Becky have to stay in hospital for another few days. Prayers are welcome.