All my ladies - well two of them Scenes 10 & 13

One of the things that started to frustrate me after a while was not just designs I couldn't get right, but I got bored of beards and male characters. Obviously there were quite a few key ones that I wasn't concerned about including, and sometimes the male characters were offstage like Noah, but I wanted some prominent female figures and not just Mary and Elizabeth and Eve, all important but mothers or progenitors. So I went on a search and I found two slightly obscure but significant figures: Deborah (old testament) and Priscilla (Acts of the Apostles). I liked them because their prized features were not entirely about family life:

• Priscilla, with her husband Aquila, was a teacher and early leader of the church and are mentioned equally and predominantly together
• Deborah was a prophet and leader

For scene 10 with Priscilla and Aquila the design was pretty basic. I wanted them in front of a house that they had which was one of the earliest churches.

The sketch here also shows how impatient I am, I was at my parents, so rather than find proper paper, I sliced open some envelopes and used those.

I decided to symbolism this again by using the fabric with writing on it as well as Priscilla with a book in her hand.

The other thing I decided, linking into the "no more beards" thing was that I decided with these Roman sounding names, they either were Roman or they had become Romanised, so I gave Aquila a clean shaven look and left Priscilla's hair uncovered, or perhaps covered with a wig!

I don't really think about scale when I'm making things but it occurred to me at this point that I make very small pics, and I put a 10p coin next to Priscilla's head for scale. It's pretty teeny tiny.

(Bible references for the pair Acts 18:2, 18, 26, Romans 16:3, 1 Corinthians 16:19, 2 Timothy 4:19)

For Deborah (scene 13) I went through several design iterations starting from this idea of Deborah as ordering the leader of her army to go into battle. I started with a sketchy army in action but I quickly realised I am terrible at these kinds of large scenes and also, I had no idea how to do this with fabric.

So I simplified the design to just two figures - Deborah herself and the leader of the troops - Barak.

I then wasn't too sure what to dress him in or what weapons he should carry so I did some googling and found this picture from the tomb of Khnumhotep II of what might be Israelites and I basically stole the whole clothing and bow idea from that.

It was also a key image of her to be seated under a palm tree, and I thought it would be fun if this linked in with a rest stop on Joseph and Mary's journey,  under a palm tree. So I made that key to the placement of those two scenes.

(Bible references for Deborah: Judges 4:1-16; Judges 5:1-31).

Another thing I decided to do to improve the number of women was to add in Sarah to my image of Abraham, after all he would not have had any descendants without her, and to make the innkeeper who wouldn't let the holy family stay a woman as well.

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.

A pathway - scene 8

Scene 8 at first seems like one of my scattergun approach to inclusions of interesting bible stories, but the reading about St John the Baptist opens the gospel of Mark (Mark 1:1-8) and is one of the readings read in the run up to Christmas. The actual story is about preparing for the adult Jesus, but I guess it is read at this time of year because we are preparing for the arrival of the infant Jesus.

My depiction in a hair shirt in the desert is a classic depiction.

The reading itself  harks back to and specifically references an earlier prophecy in Isaiah (Isaiah 40:3). The key words for this scene is "make straight the way of the Lord".
As a result I decided the scene would extend beyond itself, with the path becoming straight and extending away from it.
To make reference to the (?)intertextuality - reference that also makes reference to another text, and to the idea of prophecy, I decided to make use of some beautiful fabric with writing on it. I tried to make sure I chose writing that was not super legible but was clearly writing. I also put some of it upside down.

Another element to the design I added as a later feature when putting on the numbers, and you can see here, but also in scene 1, is a marker of the fact that this scene is a key point in the journey - a Sunday, the second Sunday of Advent. The number 8 is surrounded by the shape of a flame. 

Added to this I chose to colour code the numbers by weeks. So this first week was a light blue circle round the other numbers. If you go back to the posts about 2-7 you can see this.

The journey begins - Interactive elements - scene 7 & 14

Early in the planning I've mentioned I wanted to have as many places where the reveal would be parts of the actual nativity story. There aren't enough individual scenes to depict and at one stage I decided that perhaps I could have Joseph and pregnant Mary stopping several times along the way. I can't remember how many stops there were originally but in the end I only did two. This also gave a sort of structure to the design with a winding road going across the whole thing.

So scene 7 is a backdrop of the start of the journey to Bethlehem from Nazareth. I made use of some map fabric I had been given to add to the emphasis on journey and added some simple houses.
For the second rest stop I wanted it to link to the scene that would be next to it, where there would be a feature of a palm tree. It was meant to feel like a small oasis of green on a dusty road. In the photo below, the lady in red is from the scene 13 which we will come to later

The interactive element came from the figure of pregnant Mary on a donkey with Joseph.
This image also reflected back to a Hispanic (possibly just Mexican) advent tradition I really like: to have a statue of the pregnant Mary and Joseph is called "La Posada" - meaning the inn (ie the journey to the inn) in the house in the run up to Christmas.
Alongside that (google tells me) there is tradition of re-enactment when two people dress as Joseph and Mary visiting various houses over 9 nights(1 for each month of pregnancy), singing songs until they are allowed in. This represents the way Mary and Joseph were forbidden room at the inn.

As I needed them to face two different ways they needed to be double sided.
Each side is not quite the same.
On one side, we see Mary's leg and foot and Joseph with a stick. And Mary holds the donkey's ear.

On the other side, we see Joseph carrying a bag and Mary sitting side saddle, with just her bottom visible. Her hand on her stomach. Inside the figures is two layers of cardboard to make them stronger and hold their shape better.

But for both, I wanted Mary's hair to be covered. I felt this would be both practical and likely on a journey encountering others.
I then had to decide if I would cover the scene in a leaf, technically Joseph and Mary should be placed on the scene and then moved to the next spot. But I thought for consistency and ease, they should be in place at the start and then move, and so I made a leaf to cover them

There weren't a lot of interactive elements in the whole project but I built on this later with the nativity scene. More on that later.

4, 5, 6 pick up... a suitcase?

I had originally imagined I would find lots of parts of the story to fill every single stage, but this was very rapidly obvious I wouldn't be able to do. I also realised I would lose patience if I did larger scenes for every stage. I decided interspersed among larger scenes I would have littler ones that were simpler or just easier in some way.

The first 7 scenes were all about the start of the journey. 1-3 about finding out about the pregnancy, but then 4-6 about preparing for or anticipating the journey to Bethlehem (Luke 1-5)


Thus 4 is the Census that kickstarts the journey.
Then you have 5 and 6 and I thought about what you take on a journey, specially from a child's perspective - which is a suitcase and keys.
Obviously neither would necessarily be a real thing for Mary and Joseph at the time but they would be comprehensible to a child.
Keys also have added symbolism for Christians with the image of the keys to the Kingdom of God (Matthew 16:18-19) being offered to Peter and a symbol of the Pope in the Catholic church.

Alongside deciding to have some smaller scenes to sew I decided since they were different in shape and scale I would have a different style of leaf. Also although I had a fair amount of the leafy green material I used for the larger scenes I didn't want to run out, and I did have a variety of other leafy decorated material scraps. Some of these leaf or faintly plant-y or green scraps were too small for the larger scenes and satisfying to use up as well.

A brief flit by - scene 3

I'm not intending to do posts for every individual scene, but unfortunately, I can't work out how to group this one with the ones following it, so I'm going to do a quickie, and then a longer post.

Number 3 is "The Visitation"
- the visit of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, mother of John the Baptist. The scene is a sort of tag on to the double header of my angel related scenes.
The last of the preamble stuff before the proper story of the journey of nativity really. (Luke 1:26-38)

 I didn't really have a complex design in mind, and the only thing that changed at all was I had originally designed them both with their hair covered (you can just about see in this pic from the back of an early stage).

Typically European Catholics at least depict Mary with a full covering of her hair, or at the very least a veil. And I just went with that in my first design, but I didn't like it particularly and I wondered if she would really wear her hair covered when with a female cousin. I looked into Jewish customs around hair covering, and it seemed like she wouldn't, so I gave them hair instead. Although apparently one way to cover your hair in some Jewish customs is to cover it with a wig! So maybe it didn't matter.

I like the simple shapes of this scene and how it came out.

In the beginning (scenes 1 and 2)

So you may be wondering - why so long between posts...welll actually there was a gap but not quite as long a gap as it looks. According to the tags in the photos I took, my earliest full sketch of the whole thing was in August 2017 and I was probably thinking about it even earlier than that, so from April 2016 to July/August 2017 is not such a huge gap really. That it took me from then until now to finish...well that's another story.

I did also do a mini project in August - a thank you to my Japanese hosts but because it's based on their name I don't want to post it up here.

One of the early design and layout ideas I had from the very start was that the first two pictures would be two elements of the story of Jesus' conception and parents relating to angels. Both Mary and Joseph are visited by angels. The nativity story is only told in the gospels of Luke and Matthew, and each of them only relay one of these stories. Luke has the annunciation when Mary is informed of her pregnancy (Luke 1: 26-38). Matthew has the dream of Joseph when Joseph is told not to put Mary aside for being pregnant (Matthew 1:18-24).
I wanted these two images to book end the top row of the design. This is one of the elements that never changed from start to finish of the layout and design.

I wanted the figures of Mary and Joseph to face each other and the designs to be mirrors of each other. The only real difference is that Mary's eyes are closed in prayer, and Joseph's are open and looking at Mary. The clothing colours are deliberately both shades of blue, and are repeated throughout the whole project for those characters

. 

As a result when it came to the angel's wings. I made a pattern that I used for all 4 of them. I actually cut the pattern out 4 times but I only really needed one!

I also was in such a hurry to start that I think for one of the two I forgot a really easy basic construction detail of most of my picture designs - a base layer of interfacing. I slightly regretted this as the background material velvet was a bit stretchy!

Another thing I decided to learn from previous projects was - don't leave all the boring stuff till the end. Almost every scene has a "door" made in a leaf shape. I did them as I went along rather than being bored at the end. 

When fashioning these first leaves I very quickly decided it was OK if some of the design was visible around the edges of the leaf - a sort of way to guess and remember what came next. After all, it would only be a surprise once. I was very lucky, I had this great green fabric for the leaves from a friend and the amount was just enough for all the leaves I wanted in that colour and fabric. Well, nearly, but I'll come to that later.

Numbers were added much, much later so I could be sure of the entire sequence, although as previously mentioned, Mary and Joseph never moved from positions 1 and 2. 

Christmas was a long time ago

When I was a child my Dad made us this beautiful advent calendar out of card in the shape of a house with Christmas card scenes behind each door. I think it was this and a life as a church going Christian reconciling commercial 25 day advent calendars and the religious festival of advent - 4 Sundays leading up to Christmas that started this project's journey. That and I wanted to make something for my latest nephew, something that could be used easily and had real purpose, so I hit on the advent calendar idea.

As with all my projects, it seems huge but it's broken down into modular sections, each of which are an achievable size in a short time frame.

Of course making things small scale has its own problems, and can make stitching quite difficult, or designs simplified from the original plan.

Early on there were a few core things I wanted to do overall.

• Have as many of the Christmas story elements in there as I could
•  I wanted the whole thing to feel a bit like a tree of Jesse (family tree of Jesus)
• There to be this idea of a path going along - the journey of Jesus' parents to Bethlehem.

I also found early on in design that I rapidly got tired of so many beards and so many men. I made a conscious choice to include more women, and, to look into interesting biblical women, who were not just mothers, and perhaps, some slightly obscure and less well known figures.

Unlike some of my other projects I've blogged about this is a retrospective series of posts, and so I'm not quite sure what I will remember or what I might choose to say about any or all of it.

I will probably update this post afterwards with links to different sections, or I may add an index post. I'll see how I go.