Gift Crochetting

This project is reason #26 as to why I love ravelry! I found it while browsing their patterns for Amigurumi and, boy, do they have lots of cute patterns!

I had a hard time finding the yarn in the colors requested by the pattern. There are a lot of colors! I ended up purchasing Red Heart yarn because, for the most part, I was able to match the colors requested. I already had in my stash: tan, purple, white.  I ordered the light peach, {light} raspberry {super saver}, medium blue, gold {super saver}, medium brown, lavender, orange.

But, some of the colors I had to guess which one was close to what the pattern called for, using pictures of the yarn on my laptop, hoping the pictures were true to color and my laptop screen was somewhat calibrated.

I was not disappointed.

I substituted maize for the light gold, silver for light gray, nickel for dark gray, parakeet for turquoise, seafoam for teal, cherry red for red.

Since I was going to be making a couple sets of the nativity set, and I needed to get one done fairly quickly, I decided that this year I was only going to do half of the set. Once I decided that, I started to work in more of an assembly line fashion instead of one piece at a time. Emma found it a bit morbid {yet very funny} that there would be heads here and hands there, arms, bodies, hair.

The fact that some were stored in little baggies was even more funny.

Slowly but surely, they started to come together.

The last bit was the eyes and mouth. I couldn't find the half shank buttons that the pattern called for, so I just bought 6mm beads for the adults and 4mm beads for baby Jesus {and the animals}. I bought the beads from the beading section of JoAnns, so they definitely were not buttons at all.

I also didn't buy a skein of {pink} yarn just for the mouth. And I am really glad that I didn't. At first, I was planning on using the light raspberry. But, even taking a 4 ply yarn apart, the strand was too big and I couldn't even thread the needle with it. I ended up using DMC thread that I had left over from projects that I had done years ago.

And speaking of parts, each piece didn't take long to make. It was the piecing together that took the majority of the time.

I tacked down the headcovering since it had a tendency to curl. That also helped keep Mary's arms in a bit {Joseph's headcovering is shorter}.

I tried to hide the joining by putting them in the back. Plus, for the rounds that were just one round, I did figure out a way to join the end with the beginning so that you really had to look closely to find the end.

The angel's wings were not what I expected. The pattern didn't show a picture of the angel from behind, so my assumption that the wings were wing-shaped proved to be false. Yet, the wings were easy to make and pretty, just the same.

Her hair turned out a little more beehive-ish than the pictures, but I kind of like it this way. It keeps her halo high above her head and gives her a more favorable center of gravity. I don't know if she would stand by herself if I tipped her hair back too much more.

I whip-stitched her hair to her face. I don't think it would have been worth the trouble to try to hide the stitches by whip-stitching using the back of the last row of her hair, although I may try that on the next one just to see what it looks like.

For Joseph, I sewed the beard on first, only securing the top to his face with brown. Then, I sewed his headcovering to his face using a whip-stitch using blue but it ended up being hidden because the blue band is tipped towards his face. The headcovering covers over the edges of the beard.

For Mary, I sewed her hair on first, whip-stitching only the top and sides. Then the headcovering could be whip-stitched to her the top of her hair.

The pattern called for laying the linen colored yarn on the manger. Really? That might last in a house without any children or where people keep things nice and neat {that counts me out}. So, I decided to tie down the 'straw', kind of like you would if you were if you were making a latch hook rug.

I also {and this sounds a bit sacrilegious} sewed baby Jesus to his blanket and sewed the blanket shut. Since the first baby Jesus was going to a home with little ones, I figured baby Jesus would soon be separated {permanently} from his blanket if I didn't.

Emma has already requested that I don't sew baby Jesus to his blanket for our set since baby Jesus is always hidden until Christmas Eve.

So, even though I've got one set done, I have a just few more parts to assemble.

Ah, a crochetter's work is never done.

The Supreme Court has ruled that they cannot have a nativity scene in Washington, D.C. This wasn't for any religious reasons. They couldn't find three wise men and a virgin.
~ Jay Leno