Nativity (Christmas project)

This year for Christmas I decided to make one figure for the nativity scene every day.

I used Crafty Cattery's patterns for Mary, Joseph and the baby as a base pattern. Apart from adding facial features and using DK yarn I made little changes to the original patterns.
I then added a variety of other objects - wings, a staff, cloaks, a lamb, gifts and head coverings. I made a manger for the baby and designed the sheep from scratch. I made the legs by covering pipe cleaners with lengths of i-chord.

Really pleased with the outcome. It was great fun and a wonderful way to retell the Christmas story over the 12 days of Christmas.

Elves

Nearly Advent. Time to call on those little Christmas helpers. Hurray!

Christmas slippers

It is certainly time to start thinking about Christmas knitting - both for presents and for our church Christmas fair.

Here is a pair of Christmas slippers (crocheted, not knitted). The free DROPS pattern is available here.

I haven't fully decided, but these slippers will most likely be for my daughter.

Strawberry hat

Unusually, I haven't knitted at all for the last couple of months or so. I am glad to have started again. September usually heralds the first knitting preparations for Christmas.

Here is a little strawberry hat (first size), which I made for the grand-daughter of a friend. I wrote the pattern several years ago and it can easily be adapted for a variety of other fruit or veg (tomato, aubergine, apple, pumpkin etc).

My next project is already on the needles: hubby's Christmas socks (by now a firm tradition)

Advent calendar

I made this mittens Advent calendar just in time for our Christmas fair. just before the first Advent Sunday.
thank you to Sarah for buying it! :)

Christmas tree decorations

Here are some Christmas tree decorations, which I knitted for the church Christmas fair. 

The Santas are by far my favourite!

The pattern is taken from Alan Dart's Advent Tree.

Nativity

After a long time of not writing in my blog, here is an update on what I spent six months last year knitting: two nativity sets (following the Sirdar patter by Alan Dart) for two friends at church.

The characters were quite fiddly and took a long time to knit, but it was also a great joy to create them with my own hands!

Here are some pictures of one of the sets (taken on a sunny summer's day in our garden):