As part of the Year of Gnomes Knitalong fun, there’s an optional schedule that includes mystery gnomes (like my April gnome) and guided knitalongs. May happened to fall into the latter category, so I decided to take part in the guided knitalong for Gnoddy (a gnome from Schira’s Gnomes of Grimblewood book, from which I’ve been working most of my gnomes up!) this month.

Anyway, enough chitchat: it’s time to introduce…

Gnoddy the First!

Gnoddy the First loves a good musical: her favourite is Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and her favourite number from the show is ‘Those Canaan Days’, because she loves a good tango. She also has a soft spot for a chocolate-y interval snack (usually some Maltesers, but her truest chocolate love is a Toble-gnome).

Table of Contents

• My First Guided Knitalong
• The Yarn
• Thoughts on the Pattern
• Changes/Adaptations
• Things I Loved!
• Things I Didn’t Quite Love…
• Final Thoughts

My First Guided Knitalong

The Gnoddy guided knitalong included weekly Zoom meetings, a flexible schedule and a plethora of helpful YouTube videos to help participants through the process of making Gnoddy.

Admittedly, I did not follow the schedule or attend the Zoom meetings, but I did watch the YouTube videos and found them incredibly helpful, so I still kind of participated!

The Yarn

For some reason, I just couldn’t get super excited over the Gnoddy pattern: some of the gnomes from the Gnomes of Grimblewood book really stood out to me, but Gnoddy just… didn’t?

Because of this, I decided to go a little crazy with my colour choices and make a super fun and colourful Gnoddy, to bring a bit more joy to my project. As with all of my Year of Gnomes projects so far, I used scraps of leftover fingering weight yarn for Gnoddy, so I can only give you a rough description of the colours (bar one of them, which I do actually know for sure):

• Dark, raspberry pink (ear flaps/brim, bobble and lower body).
• Speckled cream (nose, beard and hands).
• Multicoloured self-striping: pinks, purples, yellows and teals (jumper).
• DROPS Fabel in the shade Confetti Cake (924) (hat).

These colours were a huge departure from the more muted, autumnal colour palette of my other gnomes and, honestly they were a little outside of my comfort zone! However, I absolutely LOVE how Gnoddy the First turned out! I think going crazy with the colours really helped me enjoy the process and endeared me much more to the final Gnoddy product. Maybe next time, I’ll make a Gnoddy in a more classic colour palette, now that I know I will enjoy the process?

Thoughts on the Pattern

I think I knew that Gnoddy was going to be a little bit more fiddly than some of the other gnomes, which might be what put me off making her initially. I’m so glad that the guided knitalong came along though, because it did encourage me to give her a go anyway.

Gnoddy‘s two main features are her ear-flapped bobble hat and her jumper, which is knitted right into her body (sorry if you get too hot in the summer, Gnoddy, you’re stuck like this). The hat was easy, but did involve a few extra steps to make the ear flaps/bobble. The jumper was slightly more complicated, but still fairly straightforward (and, as with all of Schira’s patterns, was super well-explained!), but quite fiddly— just as a result of the tiny stitch counts and such.

The same pattern is used for the hands and the bobble of the hat, which I thought was very clever and helped to make Gnoddy a slightly simpler pattern. Gnoddy’s also a relatively small gnome, so once the more complex elements were completed, she actually worked up pretty quickly.

Changes/Adaptations

As this was my first Gnoddy, I didn’t make any changes to the pattern. I wanted to keep it simple this time and get used to the new techniques.

One thing I did do, which was more of a change to my own conventions, rather than anything to do with the pattern, was that I used spare yarn, rather than my beloved Barber Cords, to hold the stitches for the arms while I worked up the body of the sweater. I did start using the Barber Cords, but they were just too bulky for this small project, so it was easier to use a small piece of yarn that I could tuck away inside the body while I worked. I’ve never actually done this before, but it worked very well and it was only a little bit fiddly to pick them back up from the yarn before working the sleeves.

Things I Loved!

There are so many things I love about Gnoddy the First (despite my initial misgivings):

• The colours

Picking such bright, busy colours was a big step outside of my comfort zone and… I think it really paid off! My Gnoddy is so cheery and happy, she just brings me so much joy!

• The fact that I didn’t have to block the beard

To keep the beard straight (and not curly, like with Gnicole), you don’t block it before unravelling the rows. Blocking always feels like a very tiresome (though, I admit, necessary) step, so I was thrilled to discover that I actually wasn’t allowed to block this beard!

• Gnoddy‘s little jumper

Was this jumper fiddly to make? Yes, absolutely. Is it the cutest thing in the whole wide world? Also yes, absolutely.

• Gnoddy‘s ear flaps

I wasn’t totally sold on the ear flaps: they’re a little… lumberjack-y? for me and they involve a lot of darning in ends neatly to make a nice finished edge. However, I do really think they give Gnoddy loads of personality, and they fit super well with her jumper, so she doesn’t look too… shoulder-y?

• The hands

I admit, I did sigh a little when I realised I had to knit and attach the hands to the sleeves individually, but I actually think the method used for attaching them was so ingenious and foolproof that halfway through the process I forgot about it being tedious and just marvelled yet again at Schira’s creativity and ingenuity.

• Picking up the stitches for the body

Because Gnoddy contains so many different colours, it’s actually really easy to pick up stitches for the body sections, which is something I struggle with sometimes with these gnomes. The colour changes make it super clear where the rows are, so you can stick to a straight line very easily. I also found Schira’s YouTube video on this super informative and helpful, so I’d definitely recommend checking that out if you’re making any of her gnomes— not just Gnoddy!

Things I Didn’t Quite Love…

Having said all that, naturally, there were a couple of parts of the process that weren’t quite so much fun:

• Darning in the aforementioned ear flap ends

I found that the edges of the ear flaps were quite untidy, particularly where the yarn was cut/joined, so I had to use the ends to neaten them up a little before I darned them in. That’s fine, but I really dislike darning in ends and this extra step made the process that little bit more tedious.

• Making the fiddly sleeves

Look, making tiny sleeves like this was never going to be fun, but it was definitely very fiddly. It wasn’t hard, just a bit awkward working with so few stitches (and stuffing them later on!). Luckily, the sleeves are so tiny that they go by very quickly, so it’s just a short term discomfort!

Final Thoughts

Overall, I really love Gnoddy the First, which was a big surprise to me, because I wasn’t feeling overly inspired when I set out to make her. As I said, I do think the colour choices made a huge difference for me this time around and I can definitely see myself making some more colourful gnomes in the future.

Even though I didn’t quite participate in the guided knitalong to the extent I could have, I’m still glad I participated to some degree: I don’t know if I would have made Gnoddy any time soon without the encouragement and I’m so glad I did! I found the YouTube videos super helpful: I’ll definitely be checking out more of Schira’s videos in the future to help me with my gnome-making endeavours.

So, that’s the rundown on my May gnome for the Year of Gnomes 2025: a colourful and playful Gnoddy the First. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about my experience making Gnoddy, half-following along with my first ever guided knitalong and harnessing the power of colour to instil a bit of inspiration!

I’ll be back soon with my June gnome. Until then, happy gnome-ing!

Gemma

xxx