Guide to Advent Calendar with links

It's over and done, but for anyone who wants the full list, here it is

1. Annunciation - Mary has her pregnancy foretold by Angel Gabriel - large scene ( First Sunday)
2. Joseph is warned by an angel not to divorce Mary - large scene
3. Visitation - Mary visits her cousin Elizabeth, pregnant with John the Baptist - large scene
4.  Census document - Mary and Joseph must travel to Bethlehem to participate in the census - small scene
5. A suitcase represents preparation for the journey - small scene
6. Crossed keys represents things you take on a journey, and the keys to heaven of St Peter, head of the first church - small scene
7. Mary and Joseph begin their journey - large scene

8. John the Baptist and and Isaiah predict Jesus coming "make straight the way of the Lord" - large scene - large scene (Second Sunday)
9. Parable of the pearl without price (Matthew 13:45-46) - small scene
10. Priscilla and Aquila, key figures in the early church- large scene
11. The whale that swallowed the prophet Jonah - small scene
12. Noah's Ark - large scene
13. Deborah - prophet and leader in the old testament - large scene
14. Joseph and Mary stop at an oasis on their journey - large scene


15. Wise men watch the star in the east - large scene (Third Sunday)
16. Adam and Eve - large scene
17.  Miracle of the loaves and fishes - small scene
18. Abraham and Sarah - descendants numbered like the stars - large scene
19. Moses as a baby in the reeds - small scene
20. Vine - small scene
21.  No room at the inn - large scene

22. Angels visit the shepherds to announce Jesus birth - large scene (Fourth and final Sunday)
23. Gifts of the magi - gold frankincense and myrrh - small scene
24. Star above the place where Jesus was born - small scene
Nativity scene - individual parts make up a picture
25. Donkey
26. Ox
27. Joseph
28. Mary
29. Jesus

Some more randoms - 17 & 20

I guess I could have added this to the random collection post earlier but I didn't want it to go on forever. I suppose the miracle of the loaves and fishes and the image of the vine are both linked into the idea of the central part of many Christian services - communion, but they were mainly chosen as familiar images and stories that I felt an interest in recreating.

If you'll permit me to be harsh on myself, I would say scene 17 - the loaves and fishes is possibly the weakest of all my designs. It's not super interesting or clever, it simply is some loaves and fishes.

Scene 20 - the vine on the other hand is very simple but I just think it came out rather beautifully, specially as, like the pearl without price (scene 9), it was kind of made up to fill a gap sort of late in the day.

One of the things I have enjoyed about the smaller scenes was finding and using as many different leafy, planty related fabric scraps as i could find in my stashes. However, I did get to scene 20 and start worrying that I didn't have any more.


This wasn't strictly true, I did have another leafy fabric, but it had flamingos on it.

So I stitched together two bits to hide the flamingos and I had my last small leaf!

Beginnings and babies - 16, 18 and 19

For now I'm skipping over 15 because it's one of the nativity ones, and I thought these three had a slight thematic link with some randoms interspersed.

From Adam and Eve as first people, to Abraham, founder of the faith, to Moses as baby.

Scene 16 - Adam and Eve had been earlier up the sequence and ended up demoted down the scale to a place that I needed them in the sequence. There's not much to say here about the design. The choice to make them dark skinned is really not specific to them as I wanted all these biblical figures to be nonwhite, moreso here perhaps than with the others. The design is just arranged to be pretty and save me having to work out how to do modest nude people. I did enjoy making the top of the tree 3D though.

 Scene 18 is Abraham surrounded by stars to reflect the line about  his descendants being like stars.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, I chose to add in Sarah because she helped him have those descendants and is therefore important too. God chooses her as much as him.

Scene 19 - Moses in the reeds was just an off the cuff quick sketch that kind of worked out small scale. Not much to say about it really. It was very quick and easy to do.

A random collection... 9, 11, 12

I was trying to be very strictly numeric with these posts about the Advent calendar, but it's just not working for me so I'm going to group a bit as it suits me, roughly in order.

Having started with a week of at least loosely nativity related stories for 1-8, and seeded some key elements of the nativity later in the sequence, I then I had to work out what to fill in between. I thought about trying to make some themes - prophets, beginnings but I didn't really find that very inspiring. I definitely wanted the other stories to be visual so that it would be easier to design, and ideally where possible to be familiar stories. Unfortunately as well, sometimes what you can draw is not what you can sew and as well when I chose to change one element others also changed or got moved. There was an overall design to consider as well as individual ones which also altered things as I went along.

Scene number 9 for example, in one set of notes seems to have been planned as Adam and Eve. But by the time I did my full drawing had turned into the wolf lies down with the lamb (Isaiah 11:6) - the reference about the peaceable kingdom, Adam and Eve having been moved elsewhere in the design and sequence.

I just couldn't make this work as anything at all design wise, and very late on I eventually I just chose a story I kind of liked and would be to create - the Pearl with out Price parable in Matthew 13:45-46. You can of course make links to the Christmas story, baby Jesus as hidden jewel in a cave. And the parable itself is about the pricelessness of God and his wisdom but I did mainly choose it because I liked it and I liked my design.

Once I chose this one, I wanted a fake pearl to put on. I was very touched to find that my Dad insisted on bringing me a large pearl bead from a collection he has from some old project.

With scene 11 I have an early notes that just says "tree", and then it became Jonah and the Whale, because it's fun and who doesn't like drawing whales? It also moved position from higher up, to lower down the design.

It was one of the easiest to do, alongside the pearl without price.

Scene 12, I have an early note saying Moses in a basket, which later moved elsewhere, and then Daniel in the lion's den, which I also just didn't like drawing, the lions looked like pet cats. So I looked around for a replacement and eyed up another of my designs, which I realised that I had drawn it far too small to execute - Noah's ark. So I made it a larger design to fill this spot. The design was much enhanced by a beautiful blue map fabric I had in my stash.