You can probably tell, but this year has been a really gnome-y one for me! I’m currently working on my December entry for the Year of Gnomes 2025, but it’s another MKAL (mystery knitalong), so I can’t share that one with you this year (I must protect the gnome secrets)! It wouldn’t be right to let the festive season pass by without a nod to my gnome-ing era, though, so I decided to make a different, Christmassy gnome outside of the year-long challenge.

Enter: Gnoel!

Gnoel is in charge of the Grimblewood Carol Singers: he picks the songs, assigns the parts and maps out the route every single year. His favourite carolling pick is The First Noel (for obvious reasons), but he is also partial to We Wish You A Merry Christmas, because, on occasion, the gnomes of Grimblewood have been known to take the lyrics literally and bring the troupe some actual figgy pudding (Gnoel‘s favourite treat!). Some of the members say he rules with an iron fist, but he would say that he rules with a firmly knitted mitten: there’s a difference.

Sarah Schira (a.k.a. Imagined Landscapes), released the pattern for this festive, colourwork gnome back in October (you can purchase it here) and I just loved all of the little details— I mean, just look at the hat bobbles, the fringe beard and the little mittens! Honestly, I think Gnoel might be my favourite gnome I’ve ever made. Scratch that: he is my favourite Gnome I’ve ever made!

Table of Contents

• Yarn Choices
• Thoughts on the Pattern/Gnome-Making Process
• Changes/Adaptations
• Final Thoughts

Yarn Choices

I think my favourite thing about Gnoel is the colours I used for him: I wanted something really festive, but something a little different to the more classic, red/green/white combo from the pattern. I spent a little while looking through other knitters’ projects on Ravelry (you can find my Ravelry profile here!) and saw lots of people using blues and purples, which I thought looked really nice, so I decided to take inspiration from that and make my own, blueish Gnoel.

Just as with my Year of Gnomes knits (or the majority of them, at least), I used scraps of fingering weight yarn for Gnoel. The pattern actually calls for DK weight yarn, but I just used fingering weight and sized my needles down accordingly (more on that later), because I wanted Gnoel to fit in nicely with my other gnomes, size-wise.

Gnoel requires 5 colours (I know, it’s a lot!), so I chose a navy blue; a mid blue; a deep, raspberry red; a slightly variegated gold and a cream. Coincidentally, all of the yarns (bar the gold, which I cannot place), are DROPS Fabel (a sock yarn that is particularly good for colourwork), which made them great choices for this particular project. The cream shade is Off White (100), the navy blue shade is Blue (107), the mid blue shade is Grey Blue (103) and the red shade is Ruby Red (113).

I absolutely LOVE how these five colours work together: it’s a really rich colour palette that, while not inherently Christmassy, still feels very festive and cosy. I did mess around with the arrangements of the colours in the various charts a little, just to get the best out of my specific choices, but it wasn’t anything too crazy!

Thoughts on the Pattern/Gnome-Making Process

I had the time of my LIFE making Gnoel. Actually, let me rephrase that: I had the time of my life making Gnoel’s hat and body (the arms, bobbles and beard… not so much). I was quite nervous going into this project because I knew it was going to be on the bigger side and that there was a lot of colourwork, but I honestly enjoyed the process SO MUCH. I think that’s partly to do with my colour choices (it was such a joy seeing the patterns work up in those beautiful shades!), but also, I just do love knitting colourwork— particularly when it stays nice and even and I don’t run into any problems. I was so glad I used DROPS Fabel for this— the colourwork sections using that yarn worked up so neatly and I definitely noticed a difference when I used the non-Fabel gold shade!

Worked in the fingering weight yarn, my Gnoel is about 24cm high. The shape of both his hat and body are relatively simple (albeit large): the wow factor really comes from the colourwork design and the small features: the fringed beard, the mittened arms and the bobbles on the hat! As much as I LOVE how all those little features look on the finished Gnoel… they were a bit of a pain to make. The beard includes a lot of cutting and re-joining the yarn, the mittens are exactly as fiddly as you might expect them to be and the bobbles… well the bobbles are straightforward, but having to make three of them (including the nose) feels like a bit of a chore. However! You cannot argue with results and boy, does Gnoel look cool. It’s worth a bit of faffing around to make him so absolutely adorable and wintery and warm: I love him.

Changes/Adaptations

I usually don’t make any changes to gnome patterns the first time I make them, but I did end up making a few alterations to Gnoel this time around:

• Fingering weight yarn (and needle sizes)

First of all, as I mentioned, I used fingering weight yarn instead of the DK weight yarn suggested in the pattern. Because of this, I used 2.25mm and 2.5mm needles instead of the 3.25mm and 3.5mm needles called for. As always, I made this gnome on circular needles using the magic loop method, not DPNs.

• Colour positions

I used 5 colours, as called for in the pattern, but I rearranged the positions of them in some of the colourwork charts, just to make sure they fit well together.

• Needle positions

In the body instructions, the pattern suggests not having a needle join at the centre-front, to ensure that the colourwork pattern looks super neat there. I would actually recommend applying this principle to the hat as well, because there is a larger tree motif at the centre-front of the hat that falls right where your needle join would be (particularly if, like me, you’re using the magic loop method). I rearranged my stitches so that my BOR marker was in the centre of one of my needles and the two needle joins were on the left and right-hand side of the hat, respectively, which made my Gnoel look much neater than he otherwise might have! I’m really glad I did this.

• Beard fringe length

I made the fringe on my beard 1.5cm long, which is a little shorter than the pattern calls for, because I think it looks better on my Gnoel this way. I did cut it to the original length to start with, but it just looked a little too long and straggly!

While we’re on the topic of the beard fringe: I found the best way to cut it was to stick a piece of washi tape along one edge of the beard, right on top of the fringing, then hold the whole thing up in the air and trim the fringe right up against the edge of the washi tape, with a small pair of scissors (and, then, of course, repeat that process for the other side). Handily, my washi tape was already 1.5cm wide, so it was a perfect marker, but it also keeps the fringing secure while you trim, so you can hold it up and get a super neat, even cut.

Final Thoughts

I said it earlier and I meant it: I think Gnoel is my favourite of all of the gnomes I have made this year (and I’ve made a lot…). I love the colours I chose, I love the colourwork design, I love his shape and size and general festiveness. I even love those fiddly little mittens, the fringe on his beard and the little bobbles on his hat. He just brings me so much joy to look at, and brought me even more joy to make: long story short, he’s my dream gnome. This was definitely one of my favourite knitting projects of the year!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my festive gnome-ing (and my beloved Gnoel)!

If you're interested...

You can find the pattern for Gnoel on Ravelry here.

You can find my Ravelry project page for Gnoel here.

Gemma

xxx

For obvious reasons, I’m calling this trio: Gnew Baby.

All three of the gnomes in this post were made using the Gnarley pattern from The Gnomes of Grimblewood by Sarah Schira (Imagined Landscapes). In today’s post, I’ll be sharing the yarn/needle details for this project, along with instructions for converting the regular Gnarley pattern into a tiny, Baby Gnarley. Because the original Gnarley pattern is not mine, I’ve written these instructions in such a way that you need the original pattern to understand it, so you’ll need a copy of The Gnomes of Grimblewood.

You can find the Gnarley pattern on Ravelry here.

Table of Contents

• The Yarn + Needles
• Regular Gnarley
• Slightly Smaller Gnarley
• The Baby Gnarley
• Adapting the Gnarley Pattern to Make it Tiny:
• Final Thoughts

The Yarn + Needles

My mum made a cute little outfit/blanket set for the new baby, using BC Garn Loch Lomond Lace GOTS, in the shades Nougat (04), Sand (19) and Silver (06). I thought it would be nice to use that same yarn to make this gnome trio, so that they matched the blanket!

I used the following colours for the gnomes:

Regular Gnarley: Nougat (hat and body), Silver (beard and nose).

Slightly Smaller Gnarley: Sand (hat and body), Silver (beard and nose).

Baby Gnarley: Nougat and Sand (hat), Nougat (body), Silver (beard and nose).

Obviously this is a lace-weight yarn, which is a little thinner than the suggested fingering-weight yarn from the book, so I did have to change up my needles a little bit (though not as much as you would expect: the yarn does fluff up and fill out a little after blocking, so it wasn’t too much of a problem!). I also made some strategic needle-size decisions to differentiate between the two ‘adult’ Gnarleys, using a slightly smaller needle to make a slightly smaller Gnarley.

Needle sizes used:

Regular Gnarley: 2.25mm for hat, body, beard and nose.

Slightly Smaller Gnarley: 2.00mm for hat, body, beard and nose.

Baby Gnarley: 2.00mm for beard, 2.25mm for hat and body, 2.5mm for nose.

I found the beards/noses were most affected by the thinner yarn, so I didn’t size up my needles for them, as the pattern suggests. I did use a larger needle size for the baby gnome’s nose, to make sure it was big enough proportionally (and because it didn’t need stuffing, so I didn’t have to worry about the stuffing poking out!).

Regular Gnarley

Regular Gnarley was made exactly according to the original Gnarley pattern from The Gnomes of Grimblewood. The only change was that I didn’t go up to the larger needle size when making the beard/nose (because of the slightly thinner yarn) and instead used the 2.25mm needles for every element.

Other than that, Regular Gnarley is exactly what it says on the tin: Regular Gnarley. He’s ever-so-slightly slightly smaller than my Year of Gnomes, March Gnarley, as a result of the thinner yarn.

I used the darkest shade of the yarn (Nougat) for Regular Gnarley‘s hat and body, then the Silver shade for his beard and nose.

Slightly Smaller Gnarley

Slightly Smaller Gnarley is also made according to the original pattern. The only change this time was that I used 2.00mm needles for all of the elements (i.e. sized down a needle AND did not increase the needle size for the beard/nose).

This made Slightly Smaller Gnarley ever so slightly, well, smaller than Regular Gnarley (which I did intentionally, to make the trio look like a nice little family, each member with their own identity!).

I used the medium shade of the yarn (Sand) for Slightly Smaller Gnarley‘s hat and body, then the Silver shade for her beard and nose.

The Baby Gnarley

Onto Baby Gnarley now and this is where things get interesting!

To make Baby Gnarley, I still used the original Gnarley pattern, BUT I scaled it down to make it significantly smaller.

I made Baby Gnarley using a combination of the two hat/body shades that I used for her parents (i.e. Nougat and Sand). To incorporate both, I opted to give Baby Gnarley a striped hat and used plain Nougat for the body. I didn’t want to add stripes to the body, because the texture on Gnarley‘s body is quite subtle, so I didn’t want to overshadow that.

Adapting the Gnarley Pattern to Make it Tiny:

Okay, so here is the part where I try my very best to share all of the adaptations I made to shrink Gnarley down, without sharing Schira’s pattern (and intellectual property!) from the book. To follow this tutorial, then, you will need a copy of The Gnomes of Grimblewood, which you can use in conjunction with these instructions to make your very own Baby Gnarley:

Abbreviations:

st(s) = stitch(es)

k = knit

kfb-M = knit front and back modified (see The Gnomes of Grimblewood book, p.12).

p = purl

PM = place marker

HAT CHANGES (Gnarley, p.44):

• Cast on 24 sts on 2.25mm needles.
• 3 rounds of 2×2 rib for brim.
• Knit 13 rounds for hat.

For stripe pattern: use Sand for brim, then work in 2-round stripes, alternating between Nougat and Sand for remainder of hat. Final stripe (Nougat) will only have one round, so cast off using that colour to even out stripe width.

BODY CHANGES (Gnarley, pp.45-9):

• Knit 1 round only before starting Chart 1.
• Work all of Chart 1 (repeat 4x per round).
• Work all of Chart 2 (repeat 2x per round).
• Next round (Round 25): kfb-M, k13, kfb-M, k13.
• Next round (Round 26): p all.
• Next round (Round 27): (k5, PM) six times.
• Stuff hat with fluffy stuffing and body with weighted stuffing.
• Work decrease/finishing rounds according to pattern, then weave in end.

BEARD CHANGES (Garter-stitch beard, p.22):

• Cast on 6 sts on 2.00mm needles.
• Skip Row 1.
• Work Row 2.
• Work Rows 3 and 4 a total of 3 times (9 sts).
• Work Rows 17 and 18.
• Work Rows 19 and 20 a total of 3 times (6 sts).
• Cast-off.

NOSE CHANGES (p.23):

Instead of making the large nose from book, make the Small Nose using 2.50mm needles.

Final Thoughts

I’m so happy with how this little gnome trio turned out: particularly Baby Gnarley! I think his little striped hat is SO cute— I’m definitely going to try out striping more Gnarley hats in the future.

I was surprised by how big a difference going down 0.25mm in needle size made to the finished size of the gnome: you can really see the size difference between the two adult Gnarleys, as well as the size difference caused by the yarn weight in the centre and right-hand Gnarley (the latter of which was my March gnome!).

Using lace-weight yarn probably did complicate matters unnecessarily, but I just love how this little set matches the blanket my mum made.

I hope you’ve found this post interesting (or helpful, if you’re contemplating making your own Baby Gnarley!). I had SO MUCH fun making this Gnew Baby trio and I think they turned out so cute and fun.

If you're interested...

You can buy The Gnomes of Grimblewood on Amazon here.

You can find the Ravelry pattern page for Gnarley here.

You can visit the Imagined Landscapes website here.

You can find my Ravelry project page for Gnew Baby here.

Gemma

xxx

My brother and his wife (they got married last weekend!) recently moved into their new house and, as a housewarming present, I offered to make them a set of gnomes! They both picked their favourite gnome from my copy of The Gnomes of Grimblewood and, so, I set about making them their very own versions of Gnicole (the cabled gnome) and Gnatalia (the colourwork gnome).

Gnicole is a self-proclaimed instant noodle connoisseur and maintains that spicier noodles are always better. While the curly, ramen-style noodles are her favourite, she does also enjoy some nice spaghetti. In fact, she always carries a stash of dried spaghetti with her, under her hat, in case of emergencies (hence why her hat is so outrageously tall). Of course, she stole that idea from Paddington, but she doesn’t think he’ll mind: imitation is, after all, the sincerest form of flattery.

Gnatalia loves ballroom dancing: she very much enjoys a classic waltz, but her favourite dance is the tango, because she likes the drama. Because she only has feet (no knees), she can’t dance the Argentine tango, which is a source of great sadness to her. Unfortunately, Gnicole is too top-heavy (as a result of her spaghetti-stuffed hat) to be a suitable dance partner, so Gnatalia is in the market for a someone new (her first choice is Anton Du Beke, but she is willing to settle for someone else if necessary).

Table of Contents

• Yarn Choices
• Thoughts on the Patterns/Gnome-Making Process
  • Gnatalia
  • Gnicole
• Changes/Adaptations
• Final Thoughts

Yarn Choices

As with all of the gnomes in my Year of Gnomes undertaking, I made both of these gnomes using leftover fingering weight yarn that I had already had on hand. In general, I tried to stick as closely as possible to the colours in the inspiration photos (both in The Gnomes of Grimblewood book), though, obviously, I did have to make a few changes here and there where I didn’t have exact matches.

Even though the two gnomes are very different from each other, I still wanted them to feel like a set. I opted to use the same colour for both Gnicole‘s hat and one of the accent colours on Gnatalia‘s hat (the brim/horizontal stripe colour). I also gave Gnicole a grey beard (as opposed to a white beard), so that Gnatalia wouldn’t look dirty next to her, with her grey beard and hat. Both gnome designs already had tassels, so I think, along with the colour choices, this version of Gnicole and Gnatalia look like a nice, matching-but-not-too-matchy pair.

Little note here: I’ve never worked with teal yarn before, so I wasn’t expecting this, but MY GOODNESS did my hands look a MESS after knitting Gnicole. The dye on the yarn just seemed determined to get all over me, which did make the experience slightly less enjoyable. Sometimes the dye washed off, sometimes it didn’t, but it definitely turned me off knitting with teal again for the foreseeable future!

Thoughts on the Patterns/Gnome-Making Process

As I’ve mentioned multiple times in my Year of Gnomes series, I absolutely love following Sarah Schira‘s gnome patterns: they’re SO clear and easy to follow and understand, which makes knitting up even the fiddlier parts of the gnomes seem super doable and not at all overwhelming.

This was, however, my first time making both Gnatalia and Gnicole, so I thought I’d share my initial thoughts on those specific patterns here.

Gnatalia

Gnatalia is quite different to the other gnomes I have made: not only does she have the whole folded hat thing going on, she is also a much rounder shape. Furthermore, she has the most complex colourwork I’ve done in a gnome (the only other gnome-based colourwork I’ve tried was Gnolan‘s stripes, which doesn’t really compare at all).

I was dreading the colourwork element of Gnatalia a little bit, but it actually wasn’t too bad! I did end up with a lot of ends to tie off and darn in (though the darning probably wasn’t completely necessary— I could have just left them as stuffing additions), which was sad, but kind of a given with colourwork. My work is pretty neat everywhere except the beginning of the round, where everything gets a little loose and, well, less neat, so that’s definitely something for me to work on next time around.

Weirdly, I was also very nervous about folding over and sewing down the hat, but it was genuinely super simple and easy to do. Yet again, Schira’s instructions make even the overwhelming tasks feel approachable and I am so very grateful for that.

I really enjoyed making the more rounded body shape for Gnatalia, but I did find it a little trickier to stuff than the other gnomes. Gnatalia is quite a stable gnome, so I didn’t find that it was necessary to leave 1/3 of the body for weighted stuffing (I ended up only filling about 1/4 to 1/5 instead).

Gnicole

My first thing to say about Gnicole is that she is MUCH bigger than I expected? I don’t know how, but I was genuinely shocked by the size of her once I’d finished her main body piece. She’s a TALL girl (though, to be honest, it’s mainly hat). Because of her size, there is quite a lot of knitting in her and her hat also features a lot of cables, which adds to the total knitting time too. She wasn’t the most complicated gnome, but she definitely took longer to work up than most of the other gnomes I have made!

This was my first time making a curly beard and I could not, for the life of me, visualise how it was going to work. In the end, I just trusted the process, went for it and got to witness it just, well, happen (I find that’s usually the way with knitting). I love the effect of the curly beard, but I do think the shape of it is a little off— mine just feels a bit wider/more trapezoid-y than ones in the photos? More on that later.

Similarly to Gnatalia, I found stuffing Gnicole quite challenging. The pattern warns you that her hat is super stretchy, so you need to be careful not to over-stuff it. I tried my best, but I still feel she’s a little bit over-stuffed, though this could also be because the brim of the hat is quite tight and pulls Gnicole in where her hat meets her body.

Changes/Adaptations

For Gnicole, I followed the pattern pretty much exactly. The only slight change I made was that I blocked the tassel of the hat, because it was looking pretty limp and sparse when I first made it. Blocking worked wonders though: the tassel looks much thicker and all-round prettier now, so I’ll definitely be carrying that technique forward in my gnome making journey! In fact, I was able to carry it forward almost immediately, because Gnatalia also has a tassel, so it worked out well.

As I mentioned, I’m not 100% happy with Gnicole‘s beard. It’s quite… unruly at the edges— the outer ‘curls’ have a tendency to stick upwards and outwards, which kind of overwhelms Gnicole‘s little body. I folded the outer sections of the beard under the rest of it, then used the arms to hold it in gently in place, and I much prefer it that way. Perhaps next time I’ll try making the beard slightly less wide? But it would still stick out, surely, so I’m not sure…

For Gnatalia, I made two, small changes: firstly, I added feet, which the original pattern does not include, but the worsted weight sample (which I was basing my Gnatalia on) does. The feet are a bit fiddly to make, but they’re so cute and I haven’t made any since Gnorri (my very first gnome!), so I thought it was about time to make some more.

The second change I made was also a result of trying to mimic the style of the worsted weight sample as much as possible: for Chart 2, I used Yarn A in the place of Yarn B (and vice versa). It’s just a little alteration, but I’m pretty sure it’s what’s done in the sample, so I did it too.

I think, if I were making Gnatalia again (maybe even any gnome, given my problems with Gnicole too?), I’d use a stretchier cast-on for the brim of her hat. I’ve been struggling with the brim being too tight on my most recent gnomes and I think a stretchier cast-on would help with that.

Final Thoughts

Overall, I’m super happy with how Gnicole and Gnatalia turned out and I think they’ll make the perfect Gnomewarming gift for my brother and his wife. I didn’t experiment too much with the colour choices for these two, because I wanted these gnomes to be pretty accurate representations of the ones in the book. Both of these gnomes felt quite different to the gnomes I’ve already made, so it was fun to branch out a little bit and introduce some new techniques to my gnome arsenal.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my Gnomewarming project! I’ll be back next month with 2 (!!) more instalments of my Year of Gnomes series (April and May), so stay tuned for that!

If you're interested...

You can buy The Gnomes of Grimblewood on Amazon here.

You can find the pattern for Gnicole the Cabled Gnome on Ravelry here.

You can find the pattern for Gnatalia the Colourwork Gnome on Ravelry here.

You can find my Ravelry project page for Gnomewarming here. 

Gemma

xxx