I’m a little behind in sharing my gnomes, so today’s post is all about my September gnome: if you missed the previous eight gnomes in this series, you can find them all here.

The prompt for September was ‘Mod Along’: the suggestion was that you adapt an existing gnome pattern, mix and match different gnome elements, or just embrace random gnome chaos in general to make something new and exciting! Because of this, today’s Year of Gnomes post will be a little different…

Table of Contents

• Introducing: The Gniederegger Gnomes Project
• The Yarn
• September’s Gnome: The First (Official) Gniederegger Gnome Prototype
• Changes/Adaptations for Future Gniederegger Gnomes
• Prototype #1 as part of my Year of Gnomes
• The Future of the Gniederegger Gnome Project

Introducing: The Gniederegger Gnomes Project

Okay, so sometimes (read: every 5 minutes) I have these crazy, ridiculous ideas for projects. 99% of them get left in the graveyard of my Notes app, but every now and then, there’s one that I just can’t forget about. The Gniederegger Gnomes Project fits into the latter category.

Let me take you wayyyyy back to my Gnew Baby project, where I made a trio of gnomes for my cousin, his fiancée and their new baby (because, of course, right?). When I was trialling patterns for the baby gnome (a.k.a. Mini Gnarley), I made a 75% size Gnarley with a striped hat and… it was one of the cutest things I’ve EVER seen.

It occurred to me that, if left unstuffed, 75% Gnarley‘s hat was the perfect size to hold a small, sweet treat (I tend to think in crafts and sweet treats, so this was pretty on brand for me). From there, I realised that if I made 24 x 75% Gnarleys with unstuffed hats, I’d have the CUTEST advent calendar. From there, I realised the only real sweet treat that could possibly be used for this project was one of my favourites: a mini Niederegger Marzipan Loaf.

Thus, my Gniederegger Gnome, advent calendar project was born: 24, mini Gnarley gnomes with open hats, perfect for housing a single marzipan loaf, one for each day of advent. The plan is to use the same colour palette for each gnome, but mess around with the placement (more on that in a sec!). I’d also like to switch up the beard styles to add a bit of whimsy and intrigue: Schira has so many different beard patterns, it would be great to incorporate lots of them!

The Yarn

I decided to use one of my favourite Christmas films, Klaus (remember my December bullet journal setup from a couple of years ago?), as the colour inspiration for this project: I absolutely love the folk-y, festive but not too festive colour palette of the Sami people in the film. I decided to use that same colour palette for my Gniederegger Gnomes, so I ended up with 4 colours:

• Red
• Navy
• Gold
• White

The red and the navy will be the main colours for the gnomes’ hats & bodies, the white will be for the noses & beards and the gold will be an accent colour: I’m thinking of using it in one, small area on each gnome, for a pop of fun and festivity!

With my colour palette decided, I started looking into yarns. I needed a fingering weight yarn for this project, and I wanted to use one made with natural fibres (just to really roll with the whole more-sustainable advent calendar alternative). Finally, I didn’t want anything too expensive, because I feel like I’ll need quite a bit of yarn to make 24 gnomes, especially when working with 4 different colours!

In the end, I settled on DROPS Flora, a 65% wool/35% alpaca blend. I chose the colours Red (18), Indigo (10), Caramel (25) and Off White (01).

September’s Gnome: The First (Official) Gniederegger Gnome Prototype

Finally, onto my September gnome for the Year of Gnomes! This gnome doesn’t have a name, but he is the first official prototype for this project, so I guess that’s something. The charts/instructions referenced here are all from the ‘Gnarley‘ pattern in Schira’s book, ‘The Gnomes of Grimblewood‘.

To keep the hat open, there needs to be a solid ‘shelf’ at the base of the hat. This keeps the stuffing in the body and leaves the hat free to be filled with marzipan!. I tried a few different methods for this, but found that the majority of them tended to suck the gnome in too much, making it look very skinny and… slightly deformed?

In the end, I found that knitting the hat and body as two separate pieces was the best method: you start the body with a pinhole cast-on (6 sts) and knit a flat circle (which ends up being the ‘shelf’ in question), as follows:

R1: (kfb around) – 12 sts 
R2: (k1, kfb) around – 18 sts 
R3: (k2, kfb) around – 24 sts 
R4: (k3, kfb) around – 30 sts 
R5: (k4, kfb) around – 36 sts 
R6: (k5, kfb) around – 42 sts 
R7: (k6, kfb) around – 48 sts 

Then, you work a purl round, followed by a knit round (to make a nice, clean edge) before jumping back into the body instructions (working from the start of Chart 2 onwards). I used navy for the body, then switched to red from the first row after finishing Chart 4 onwards, so that the base is a different colour, which I think adds a bit of extra fun!). I also added a circle of cardboard to the top of the body before stuffing it, to ensure the ‘shelf’ stays flat, even and the right diameter. With that, the body was done!

I knitted the hat as instructed, using a slightly smaller stitch count than the one in the pattern (42 sts). I knitted the hat in 2 row-stripes, alternating between red and navy. I used the gold shade for the brim of the hat. Instead of using a three-needle bind-off to finish off the hat, I used a 3-stitch i-cord bind-off. This makes a super neat, clean edge, even when the hat is left open (as it is here).

Once the body is made, stuffed and finished off, the hat is sewn onto the purl round of the body, right around the brim, along the stitch line on the hat that is marked with a stitch marker earlier on in the pattern instructions. This, along with the cardboard circle at the top of the body, prevents too much ‘sucking in’ and keeps the gnome looking nice and proportional, while also helping with the advent calendar function!

For this prototype, I made the beard from Here We Gnome Again, which is one of my all-time favourites of Schira’s beard patterns (and, handily, happens to have a built-in nose!). It’s a pretty small beard, so I didn’t have to scale it down, but other beards will definitely require a bit of reconfiguring! I did forget to size up my needle before knitting the beard, so mine is even smaller than it should be, but that is easily remedied in future iterations.

To finish off the gnome, I used some navy sewing thread to attach a metal snap fastening to the top of the hat, positioning it in the middle, just below the i-cord bind-off. This means that the hat can be ‘closed’ and ‘opened’: when open, it can be filled with a marzipan loaf and, when closed, it has a more authentic, gnome-y shape.

Changes/Adaptations for Future Gniederegger Gnomes

The first time I tried to replicate the original pattern that I used for my 75% Gnarley, it just didn’t quite work out: I made a few changes that had a significant (negative) impact that really scared me off (most notably, omitting the zig-zag rib pattern, which made the gnome super skinny and deformed— an unpleasant vibe that was only exaggerated by the fact I had not yet solved my shelf conundrum!). For this prototype, then, I went a little too far the other way, so my gnome ended up the right height, but a little too pear-shaped and wide for my liking (nothing against curvy gnomes— just not what I was going for here!).

Naturally, I think my initial pattern (sans ill-advised changes) was the best, so I think my next trial will combine that original pattern with everything I’ve learned about inserting that inner shelf.

So, here’s what I plan to do for Prototype #2 (and, hopefully, if all goes well, the 24 official Gniederegger Gnomes!):

• Try working charts 1-3 instead of 2-4 for a slightly slimmer shape.
• Stick two layers of cardboard together at the top of body to keep the shelf extra firm (my cardboard did end up bending a little when I stuffed the body).
• Add another few rounds at the top of body (so maybe, just before starting the chart work: 1 round of k all, 1 round of p all, 1 round of k all, then sew hat onto the purl row here (i.e. not the initial purl row marking the edge of the shelf) to keep the shape better).
• Make the hat slightly taller: perhaps add another 2-row stripe?
• Secure cardboard in place at the top of the hat, maybe by sewing some long stitches underneath it, right across the diameter? I really want the cardboard to sit perfectly within the initial purl round to keep everything neat and even.
• Leave a long end at the start of the hat for sewing it onto body.
• Use the right-sized needle for beard!

Prototype #1 as part of my Year of Gnomes

Despite being part of something bigger, Prototype #1 is still my September gnome for my 2025 Year of Gnomes, so here’s how he fits in with the rest of the gnome crew…

Obviously, Prototype #1 has a pretty festive vibe, just like Gneville (left) and Gnolan (right). In general, gnomes feel inherently festive to me, so I love making them in Christmassy colour palettes!

Sizewise, Prototype #1 is most similar to Gneville (so, not very big!). For reference, the gnome on the right is a full-size, fingering weight Gnarley, so you can see how much smaller the prototype is.

Anddddd here’s the whole crew (plus a lil’ marzipan, for good measure) together!

The Future of the Gniederegger Gnome Project

Let’s be real, making 24 gnomes is no small undertaking and I want this to be a project that I can enjoy, rather than one I’m trying to ‘get done’. At the moment, I’m leaning towards not participating in the Year of Gnomes next year (if there is one) and instead getting my gnome-y fix by working on my own, year-long gnome project: my Gniederegger Gnomes. 24 mini gnomes over the course of a year doesn’t sound too unmanageable and I think, this way, I’ll be able to enjoy the process a lot more!

Long story short, stay tuned for more Gniederegger Gnomes!

I hope you’ve enjoyed this post! I know it’s a little different to my other Year of Gnomes posts, but I’m super excited about this project and I can’t wait to work on it some more next year!

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

Gnarley the First!

Gnarley the First is a renowned interior designer, best known for her cutting-edge work with throw pillows and cushions. She’s not a big talker, but no other gnome can furnish a tree the way she can. She tries to cultivate a mysterious persona, in order to establish herself as a true ‘artiste’, but her creative idol is Edna Mode and her favourite song is ‘Raspberry Beret’, so make of that what you will...

Table of Contents

• Choosing March’s Gnome
• The Yarn
• Thoughts on the Pattern
• Changes/Adaptations
• Things I Loved!
• Things I Didn’t Quite Love…
• Final Thoughts

Choosing March’s Gnome

After two relatively… pointy gnomes, I was craving a bit of a shape change for this month’s gnome. Gnarley is the only square-hatted gnome in The Gnomes of Grimblewood (the book by Sarah Schira, which contains the patterns for all three of the gnomes I’ve made so far), so he seemed like a good choice! I was also quite excited to try knitting his textured body, which is unlike anything I’d ever knitted before.

The Yarn

For this knitalong, I’m aiming to use up leftover yarn scraps from my mum’s extensive stash (and my own, not quite so extensive stash). While this does mean that I typically won’t be able to identify the specific yarns I’m using, I actually do know what the pink tweed yarn I’ve used here is! It’s Slubby Sock by Ainsworth & Prin, in the shade Mallow. Unfortunately, according to Ravelry, this yarn has been discontinued, which is a shame, because I really liked working with it.

A tweed-y yarn possibly wasn’t the best choice for Gnarley, just because it does obscure the wavy pattern she’s got going on on her body a little bit… You can still see it, but you just have to look a little closer than you would have to with a more basic yarn. I half suspected this going in, but I just really loved the colour and fancied making a pink gnome this month, so I rolled with it anyway.

I wasn’t sure how much yarn Gnarley would use up, because her whole body and hat are made using the same yarn, so I made sure to pick a yarn scrap that I had a good amount of, just in case. I wish I’d weighed it beforehand though, because I don’t think it used as much as I expected! Note to self: start weighing all gnome yarn before gnome-ing.

For Gnarley‘s beard, I really wanted to branch out from the cream colour I used for the past two gnomes, so I decided to use a grey shade, instead. However… I did run into a number of problems with this: Gnarley‘s quite a simple gnome, for one, and the grey shades did leave her looking a little… flat? Also, because the Mallow yarn is quite a deep shade, if I went too dark with the grey Gnarley started looking very ominous and gloomy, which wasn’t quite the vibe I was looking for… Finally, because my other two gnomes have such bright, cream beards, I was a bit worried about Gnarley looking a bit… mucky next to them.

In the end, after many, many, trials of different colours (and even different beard/nose combinations!), I settled on pale, warm-toned grey shade for both the beard and the nose. By herself, Gnarley looks great, but she does look a little drab compared to the other two gnomes in my collection. I’m hoping that, as the year goes on and I make more gnomes with darker/greyer beards, Gnarley will fit right into place!

Thoughts on the Pattern

My love for Sarah Schira’s patterns continues: they’re so clear, concise (without being too brief) and always work up perfectly. This was my first time following the pattern for Gnarley the Wavy Gnome though, so I thought I’d share some more specific thoughts on this pattern in particular.

Overall, I loved making Gnarley. I’d never worked left/right twists before (like, ever!), so this was an entirely new concept to me and, with the help of Schira’s instructions, I slipped right into an easy rhythm with it. Gnarley worked up SO quickly: in part because of the simplicity of the shape (that square hat was a dream after the struggle that was Gnolan‘s hat last month!), but also because there was something strangely addictive about knitting the textured body— there must just be the perfect amount of rows between the increases and the twists, because it really flew off my needles!

Much like with Gnolan, Gnarley has very few additional elements that need to be sewn onto the main body (in fact, Gnarley has even fewer: just a beard and a nose— no arms in sight!), which made knitting her even quicker and easier. Long story short, I had a lot of fun making my Gnarley!

Changes/Adaptations

As I mentioned in my last post, I’m still getting to grips with the whole gnome-making process, so, much like with the previous two gnomes, I opted to keep things simple and follow the pattern for Gnarley to the letter, instead of trying to make any of my own adaptations.

I do think, however, that if I made Gnarley again, I would make the brim on the hat ever so slightly longer, just to help it sit better over the beard/nose, and differentiate between the hat and the body a little more. Does this mean I’m finally building up the courage to start adding my own little touches to my gnomes?!

Things I Loved!

There are a lot of things I loved about making Gnarley:

• I loved the simplicity of the hat. Both of the previous two gnome hats I have made have been conical (or, at least, vaguely conical), which I love the effect of, but does include a little more shaping and faffery to create. Gnarley’s hat was SO straightforward, making it just felt like a little treat to myself.
• I loved working the twisted stitches. As I mentioned, this is a technique I’ve never used/encountered before, but it was so simple and easy to do, I found myself really enjoying the process!
• I loved the effect of the three-needle bind off on Gnarley‘s hat. I love a three-needle bind off and I think it is just the perfect finish for the top of the square hat!

Things I Didn’t Quite Love…

There were, however, a couple parts of the Gnarley-making process that I wasn’t quite so keen on…

• As I mentioned, I feel like the brim of Gnarley‘s hat is a little too short. This is very possibly due to my stitch-picking up inabilities (more on that in a sec), but I do think I’d consider increasing the length of the rib by 1-2 rows if I made Gnarley again!
• I do not enjoy picking up stitches from 3×3 rib. Why is it so much harder to stay in a straight line?! Not a fun time (but also, why did I find 3×3 rib so much harder to pick up from than the 1×1 rib on Gnorri‘s hat?! I don’t understand…).

Final Thoughts

I loved making Gnarley (especially if we ignore the aforementioned rib-picking-up-struggles)— I definitely think she was the most enjoyable of the three gnomes to make, but I do feel like the other two gnomes (Gnorri and Gnolan), just have a little more presence about them? Gnarley is quite one-dimensional in comparison and, while part of that is my fault for using a tweed yarn and giving her a grey beard/nose, I do think it will take a few more gnomes for her to feel at home in my collection. Truly, though, she was so much fun to make— I can see myself making many more Gnarleys, just for the fun of the process.

So that’s all the intel on Gnarley the First, my March entry for the Year of Gnomes 2025! Next month, I’m planning to follow along with the April mystery gnome, Professor Fungi, so I won’t be posting that one on here until the knitalong has completely finished in May (to preserve the fun of the mystery gnome!). Soooo, there’ll be two instalments of my Year of Gnomes 2025 series in May, and none in April (sad face, but not too sad face because I’m still hoping to get a bit of gnome-ing into the blog next month anyway…!).

If you're interested...

You can buy The Gnomes of Grimblewood on Amazon here.

You can find the pattern for Gnarley the Wavy Gnome on Ravelry here.

You can find my Ravelry project page for Gnarley the First here. 

Gemma

xxx