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: