Knitting 06 - Fleece Navidad

by Maggie Sefton

“He’s sound asleep. He won’t be any trouble,” Lucy assured her, placing the snoozing David into a surprised Mary’s arms.

  “But . . . but what if he cries? I used to babysit my baby brother and he cried a lot!” Mary protested.

  “Don’t worry, you’ll be fine,” Jennifer said, giving Mary a reassuring pat on her shoulder. “You already know how to do this.” Mary stared back at Jennifer, looking only slightly less fearful.

  Kelly pointed to the surprised and still skeptical Joseph. Your turn, Joe.

  “Okay, Joseph, your job during this whole thing is to take care of Mary and the baby. That was the original Joseph’s role, and he did a pretty good job of it, too. If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t all be here today celebrating.”

  A spark of engagement flickered in Joseph’s eyes. “Okay,” he said, nodding.

  “Good. There are a lot of steps leading up to where you two are sitting, and we don’t want Mary to trip. Her hands are full, so she can’t pick up her skirt.”

  “Got it covered,” he said, then turned to Mary. “Listen, if he starts making noise, I’ll help. I was the only one who could get my baby sister to sleep.”

  “Hey, guys, I’ve gotta run to the front pew before they finish singing,” Jennifer said, opening the door to the sanctuary. “You’ll do great. Trust me.” She hastened up the aisle, cell phone in hand, as the last notes of the chorus echoed out the door.

  Okay . . . time for the pièce de résistance. Kelly walked to the front doors and beckoned the woman outside to join them.

  “Sorry to make you wait,” Kelly said as she held the door open. “You’re sweet to do this, Shelly.”

  Shelly Reynolds stepped inside the vestibule. She, too, was carrying something in her arms, but it wasn’t a baby. Not exactly.

  “Baaaaaaaah!” Annie announced her entrance.

  “I couldn’t pass this up, Kelly. It’s just too cute. I’ll be watching from the back in case she gets too playful,” Shelly said as she approached the startled teenagers.

  “Guys, meet Annie the Celebrity Lamb,” Kelly announced. “She appears at charitable events all over town. And her owner and I thought she’d make a great addition to the scene.”

  Everyone except Mary and Joseph stared blankly at Kelly. And Annie. Then they all started talking at once.

  “Don’t look at me, Coach,” O’Leary said, holding up both hands.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding!”

  “Oh, man!”

  “What if it poops?”

  “Don’t give it to me, I’m allergic to wool.”

  “Baaaah!”

  Kelly took Annie from Shelly’s arms and walked to the front of the line, where Shep One and Shep Two stared in disbelief.

  “Shep Two, hand off your staff. Annie is yours.”

  He did a double take. Any hint of mischief evaporated from his expression. “You’ve gotta be kidding!”

  “Hey, you’re a shepherd, here’s a sheep.” Kelly handed over the fuzzy bundle. Annie bleated once, then licked Shep Two’s chin.

  “What if she . . . you know, poops up there?”

  “Step around it,” Shelly said, chuckling.

  Kelly glanced over her shoulder and noticed Jennifer giving them the high sign from the front of the church. Show-time. She opened the door.

  “Okay, guys, this is it. Narrator, start ’em off. Angel, hang back so you can make a big entrance.”

  Narrator set off, chin high, pipe and composure in hand. Rock-Star-in-Waiting Angel paused until he was halfway up the aisle before starting off, smiling and angelic at the same time.

  “Oh, man . . .” Shep Two complained as Annie nibbled at his inside-out fleece.

  “Listen, it’ll be fine. Annie’s a bigger ham than you are. You can let her walk around when you’re up there, but keep track of her. We don’t want her chewing the scenery.”

  “Okaaaay . . .” he said doubtfully.

  Noticing Angel’s progress, Kelly pointed up the aisle. “Shep One, you’re on. Shep Two, you and Annie lag behind. Milk the audience reaction for all it’s worth.” She gave him a wink.

  Something in Shep Two’s eyes flickered, and Kelly wondered if she’d set more in motion than she’d planned.

  Shep Two paused then set off, Annie bleating at appropriate intervals, which caused a stir throughout the entire congregation. Heads turned all over the church. Even the priests were grinning. Parents, relatives, visitors, all grabbed their cameras and cell phones and clicked away. Kelly noticed Shep Two slow down, clearly taking his time. Annie bleated as he showed her off to everyone.

  If Annie had elicited smiles and laughter, it was nothing to the oohs and aahs heard when Mary and Joseph walked down the aisle, Baby David still asleep. Not only did Joseph help Mary up the steps, but he also moved a cushion for her to sit on. Kelly smiled to herself. Good job, Joseph.

  O’Leary and the Wise Guys made the most of their entrances, displaying their finery, causing chuckles and laughter to ripple around the church. Kelly noticed O’Leary had added his jersey number to the back of his kingly robe. Number 43. King in the making. So far, so good, Kelly thought as she stood at the rear of the sanctuary. Now, if they can just stay in character.

  She shouldn’t have worried. Narrator carried off his reading in a clear voice. Mary sat holding the sleeping babe, looking beatific, while Joseph knelt beside them. The Three Wise Men had scattered themselves around the altar steps after presenting their gifts. Angel stood on the top step, smiling radiantly, arms outstretched, flanked by both shepherds. Annie bleated periodically, causing Narrator to repeat himself while the audience chuckled.

  Kelly sighed with relief. They were a hit.

  Suddenly the chuckles got louder. Kelly noticed Jennifer hold her cell phone at an angle, aiming its camera toward Angel. Kelly peered closer at the scene, and noticed that Shep Two had maneuvered himself close enough to Angel to enable Annie to indulge her favorite pastime—nibbling.

  Annie had stopped bleating. She was too busy nibbling Angel’s fluffy wings. Shep Two had that troublemaker grin on his face again. Meanwhile, Angel continued to beam at the assemblage, blissfully unaware.

  Once again, Annie had managed to steal the show.

  “Where’s that chocolate mint fudge?” Marty demanded as he surveyed the knitting table. “I swear I saw it a minute ago. Now it’s gone.”

  “Rosa’s in charge of the fudge,” Mimi said from across the table, where she and Burt sat surrounded by the rest of Lambspun’s family and friends. Every inch of the knitting table was covered with holiday food. Plates spilled over with delectable treats.

  Brownies, both butterscotch and chocolate, rum cake, cherry cake, meringues, divinity, toffee bars, chocolate rum balls, and cookies of all kinds—Mexican wedding cakes, spritz cookies, sugar cookies shaped like Santas and candy canes frosted with icing. Kelly’s gingersnaps were almost gone. So was the pumpkin nut bread Megan made.

  Two huge punch bowls dominated both ends of the table. One with Burt’s deadly wassail and the other with milder eggnog. And an urn of coffee was also perched on a side cabinet. Mimi made sure all her guests could drive safely when they left.

  “But I haven’t had any fudge yet!” Marty complained dramatically. “I saw Greg chowing down.”

  “She only let me have one piece,” Greg replied before he took a bite of toffee bar. “Man, Rosa, you’re brutal.”

  “Have to be, with you guys around,” Rosa said, hovering over the foil package of fudge while she enjoyed a slice of cherry walnut cake. “You two are worse than my dogs at home, and they gobble up everything.”

  Burt chortled. “Now, that’s a picture.”

  “May I please have a piece of fudge, Rosa?” Marty asked politely, palm outstretched. “Oh, and put my name on your list for seconds, okay?”

  Rosa grinned and handed over a fat piece of fudge. “I’m not sure there will be any.”

  “Dude, give it up.”

  “Hey, Marty, any word about Claudia?” Ja
yleen said, leaning over the table to snare a gingersnap. “Didn’t you find her a Florida lawyer?”

  Marty didn’t answer at first. Instead, he made several loud humming sounds of pleasure. Sugar delight. “Yep, I heard from him right before the service. Claudia is settled into the Sarasota jail. Her hearing is scheduled for this Friday.”

  “Poor Claudia,” Mimi said before sipping her wassail. “I cannot imagine how she’s going to hold up if she’s sentenced to prison. She just might fall apart.”

  “Don’t be so sure,” Jayleen said, cup of coffee in hand. “I’ve got a hunch Claudia’s a lot stronger than she lets on. She may come out of this a whole lot tougher than before.”

  Burt sipped from his cup. “I hope you’re right, Jayleen.”

  Steve leaned over the table and snatched some chocolate rum balls, popping first one, then another into his mouth. “Mmmm, you gotta try these,” he told Kelly as he sat beside her.

  “I already did, and they’re deadly. Almost as deadly as that chocolate mint fudge,” she said, sipping eggnog. Burt’s wassail was also a potent brew.

  “I cannot believe that baby is so good,” Rosa said, glancing to Lucy, who was seated in the corner beside Curt and Jayleen.

  “He’s a sweetheart.” Lucy cooed to her son, who had captured Curt Stackhouse’s index finger in his fat baby fist.

  “What a cutie,” Jayleen said, caressing Baby David’s soft hair.

  As if on cue, Annie trotted up and nuzzled David’s baby blanket, then bleated. Lucy, Jayleen, and Curt laughed as David discovered Annie. A little baby fist reached out for Annie to sniff.

  Kelly watched the tableau. Lambspun’s own Madonna and Child.

  “Who made the fudge?” Lisa asked from the other end of the table. “It was here last year, too.”

  Mimi shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea. It suddenly shows up for the holidays. Whenever we have a gathering like this, the fudge magically appears.”

  Curt snorted. “Magic? Somebody’s pulling your leg, Mimi. You ought to cut off their wassail until they confess.”

  “Not a bad idea,” Megan said from another corner, her plate overflowing with goodies. “Okay, fess up, someone. Who made the fudge?”

  “Not me.”

  “Don’t look at me, I only do gingersnaps.”

  “Are you kidding?”

  All around the room, the same negative responses.

  “Come on, somebody had to make it,” Connie said from the archway.

  “I told you,” Mimi said with a smile. “It’s magic. Maybe Santa Claus makes it.”

  That caused another round of laughter.

  “I bet Pete made it,” Jennifer said, giving him a poke as they both sat side by side at the table. “It’s good enough to be Pete’s.” She took a bite of toffee.

  Pete shook his head. “It’s not mine. I don’t do candies, just pies and cakes,” he said with a broad smile, clearly enjoying the cranberry bread.

  “Maybe it’s a satisfied customer who slips it on the table when we’re not looking,” Kelly suggested, snagging a rum ball. The fermented flavors of rum and chocolate melted on her tongue.

  “Maybe so,” Burt mused out loud. “The shop was open today until right before we headed to the church.”

  Kelly waited for the surrounding voices to rise before she leaned toward Burt. “Any word on Sheila? Have you heard from Dan or anything?”

  Burt nodded as he leaned his head beside hers. “I called Dan this afternoon. Sheila has retained counsel here in Fort Connor after consulting with her Florida attorney. Dan says she’s been advised that she’s the prime suspect in the vehicular homicide of Juliet Renfrow and warned not to leave the area.”

  “When will they hear back from the state crime lab?”

  Burt shrugged. “They don’t know, but hopefully, they’ll hear within a week. Without any blood evidence on the cape, the case against Sheila is entirely circumstantial. And you never can tell what a jury will do with that.”

  “Well, we did our part, Burt.” She volunteered a smile. “It’s up to the justice system now.”

  “Absolutely, Kelly, it’s—hey, it’s snowing!” Burt’s face broke into a grin.

  “You’re kidding!”

  “At last!”

  “About time.”

  “Uh-oh. My tires are bad.”

  Kelly turned around and saw the fat white flakes outside the shop’s windows. Flurries of white outlined against the black night.

  “Now it’s officially winter,” she declared, pushing back her chair. “Come on. It’s the first snowfall of the season.” She grabbed Steve’s hand. “Outside, everybody. Let’s celebrate.”

  “Kids,” Curt said with a wry smile. “Wait’ll they have to shovel out from the first blizzard.”

  “Got that right,” Jayleen agreed with a chuckle as Kelly and all her friends tumbled from the shop, laughing and threatening each other with snowball fights.

  “Whoa, look at this!” Kelly skipped down the steps and danced into the driveway. She stared above into the flurry of snow. Flakes were falling faster and thicker.

  “Good thing you finished my scarf,” Steve teased as he caught her about the waist.

  Kelly looked around at her friends, cavorting like she was in the snowfall. Megan and Marty were laughing and catching snowflakes on their tongues, while Greg was scraping snow together into a snowball. Lisa was right behind him, though, hands already filled with snow. Jennifer held her face up to the heavens, into the flurries. Pete stood beside her, laughing. Even Mimi and Burt were watching from the shop doorway, arms about each other’s waists.

  Despite the frigid air, Kelly felt warmth all around her. She slid both arms around Steve and pulled him close.

  “I want to take a sleigh ride. I haven’t done that since I was a kid and Helen and Jim took me out there in the pastures.” She glanced toward the golf course. Pasture no more.

  “We can do that. How about the day after Christmas? I know just the place. They have horse-drawn sleighs, complete with bells, blankets, and hot chocolate afterwards.”

  “Just the two of us?”

  “Yeah, why don’t we spend the day in the mountains? Take a snowshoe hike and a sleigh ride, then come home and warm up by the fireplace.”

  Kelly smiled at the picture he’d painted. “That sounds fantastic. Mountains, sleigh rides. Only one thing. We don’t have a fireplace.”

  “We don’t need one,” Steve said with a grin, then leaned down to kiss her.

  HOLIDAY KNITTING PATTERNS

  Lambspun Easy Cozy Mittens

  SIZES:

  Children 7-10 (Instructions for adult size are shown in parentheses.)

  MATERIALS:

  3-5 ounces bulky yarn or 2 strands worsted weight yarn, to be knit as one bulky strand

  1 set of #9 or 10 7-inch, double-pointed needles or size to obtain gauge

  Tapestry needle

  Approximately a ½ to 1 ounce of accent color yarn, for decoration

  GAUGE:

  3 sts and 5 rows = 1 inch

  INSTRUCTIONS:

  Cast on 22 (26) stitches. Arrange stitches evenly on 3 needles for knitting in the round as follows: 7 (9) sts on the first needle, 8 (8) sts on the second needles, 7 (9) sts on the third needle. Join your round and begin knitting, taking care not to twist your cast-on stitches.

  Decorative Cuff (Optional):

  Knit 7 rounds of the main color. Pick up the second yarn (a thin decorative mohair, angora, novelty, etc.) and knit 10- 12 rounds or until the cuff measures the desired length. Another option: Purl 1 or 2 rounds to end the decorative portion of the cuff.

  Mitten Body:

  Continuing on the right side of work, knit 10 more rounds or until the mitten is the desired length to the base of thumb. Try the mitten on, leaving it on the needles, to determine thumb placement.

  Thumb Opening:

  Child’s Mitten Thumb:

  Knit 9 stitches (7 from the first needle and 2 from the secon
d needle) and place the next 4 stitches on a stitch holder or piece of scrap yarn. Cast-on 4 stitches on the needle with 2 stitches (the second needle) and then knit the 2 remaining stitches and continue knitting the round. Knit a total of 18 rounds or until the mitten reaches the last joint of the middle finger. Begin decrease rounds.

  Adult’s Mitten Thumb:

  Knit 11 stitches (9 from the first needle and 2 from the second needle) and place the next 5 stitches on a stitch holder or piece of scrap yarn. Cast-on 5 stitches on the needle with 2 stitches (the second needle) and then knit the 1 remaining stitch and continue knitting the round. Knit a total of 18 rounds or until the mitten reaches the last joint of the middle finger. Begin decrease rounds.

  Decrease Rounds:

  Round 1: Knit together the first 2 sts on the first needle (k2tog), and knit until 2 stitches remain on the needle and knit these 2 together (k2tog). Repeat this process for needles 2 and 3. Total sts decreased=6.

  Round 2: Knit 1 round even.

  Repeat Rounds 1 and 2 until 10 (14) stitches remain. Break or cut the yarn, leaving a 12-inch tail. Thread the tapestry needle with tail and slip it through the remaining stitches twice. Remove the needles, and pull the yarn tight. Tie off and weave in the end on the wrong side of the work.

  Thumb: (Use contrasting color if desired.)

  Leaving a 6-inch tail (which marks the start of your thumb round), join a ball of yarn, using a crochet hook to create (or “pick-up”) one stitch at the left side of thumb opening. Transfer the new st to a needle. Repeat this step to create 4 (5) stitches above the thumb opening. Pick-up 1 stitch at the right side of the thumb opening. (You will have picked-up a total of 6 stitches.) Transfer the sts that were on the stitch holder or piece of yarn to a needle. You now have 10 (12) stitches. Distribute the sts evenly among 3 needles as follows: for a child’s size: 3, 4, 3; for an adult size: 4, 4, 4. (For a smaller child’s size, knit together the center 2 stitches on the second needle (the one with 4 stitches) for 9 stitches total.) Knit around until work reaches the tip of the thumb (approximately 9 (11) rows).