December 1st – Mary

 

“Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign; the virgin, pregnant and about to bear a son, shall name him Emmanuel.”

Isaiah 7:14

Mary is the first figure to be taken out of the pocket for Day 1 of our Advent Calendar. All the figures stand about 4-5 inches high and are perfect for little fingers to play with.

For Mary, and actually the majority of the figures, I used this pattern by Carolyn Christmas from Ravelry:

Her photography skills are certainly better than mine! It is a paid for pattern but definitely worth it. The instructions are easy to follow; she suggests using a bottle lid in the base to help the figures to stand and I found this worked well. For my Mary I used traditional blue and white. I used Stylecraft Special DK for all the figures, with some other odds and ends from my stash when the colours needed it. She suggested 4mm eyes which I found on Ebay by celloexpress.ni.

Here’s a couple of photos of my grandson with the Advent Calendar, (it’s huge) so excited!

I hope you enjoy this new series through Advent. I will try to post daily, but just in case life takes over, pop over to my DressedInCrochet Facebook page where I hope to have at least a picture of the figure for each day, if not a blog post.

Thanks for stopping by.

Crocheted Nativity Advent Calendar

I decided to make a crocheted nativity set for my grandchildren: Benedict (3) and Rose (1). I had been collecting possible patterns for a while and knew that this year they will enjoy telling the Christmas Story through their own play. Then, looking at Advent Calendars and not seeing eating chocolate every day as a meaningful preparation for Christ’s birth, I realised I could combine the two. So I set about planning my 25 figures – yes 25 because you have to put Baby Jesus in the manger on Christmas Day and not before! 25 figures…. 3 wise men, 3 camels, 3 gifts, that’s 9 already. We could have a few shepherds and a whole flock of sheep, it could be possible! I could just picture Benedict and Rose getting a new figure every day and telling the next part of the story. So we would need to start with Mary, Joseph and a donkey, then an innkeeper and so the nativity would develop.

But how on earth to store these figures? They are amigurumi, about 4 inches tall, but quite chubby. A pocket storage organiser to hang on the back of a door should do it. But by this time I was rather busy trying to get all 25 figures crocheted before December 1st so I asked my mum “Ganna” to join in and make this a project for 4 generations. With a little trip to Hobbycraft, a lot of scissors and glue, and getting the trusty sewing machine out again, she came up with this:

Thanks Mum! The pockets are the perfect size, even for the camels. The pockets are felt squares, the backing is hessian and there is a doweling running through the top for it to hang from.

So we are nearly ready for Advent; waiting for the Lord. I just have 5 more figures to make this weekend and it will be ready.

I hope to post on the blog each day with a photo of the figure, the link to the pattern and I’m hoping Tess will add some photos of the children playing with them onto my DressedInCrochet Facebook page.