Today’s post is all about my November gnome… Gnoodles the First!

Gnoodles the First‘s favourite food is spaghetti (she’s not picky about the sauce), but, because she’s so small, she only needs a single spaghetto to fill her up! When she’s not eating pasta, she spends her time working on her potion-brewing and spell-casting skills. She’s hoping that the Guild of Grimblewood Witches will finally accept her application to join if she wows them with her witchy prowess: she already has the perfect hat, right?

Table of Contents

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

Choosing November’s Gnome

Throughout this series, I’ve been slowly but surely working my way through Sarah Schira’s book, The Gnomes of Grimblewood. The book contains 8 individual gnome patterns (plus the ability to mix & match different elements to make your own gnome designs) and, before this month, I’d made 7 of them. There’s another mystery gnome on the horizon for December, so I figured November would be the perfect month to get in the last gnome: Gnoodles!

Gnoodles is also known as ‘Gnoodles the Smallest Gnome’ and boy does she live up to that epithet! She’s a pretty tiny, super quick knit— I whipped her up in 2 days of (very gentle) knitting.

The Yarn

I dipped back into the ol’ yarn scrap stash for Gnoodles and picked out some autumnal shades, because, you know, it’s my last chance!

I chose a dark purple for the hat, a copper-y colour for the body (the same shade I used for Gnorri‘s hat wayyyyyy back in January) and a cream shade for the beard, nose and hands. The dark purple yarn was a little finer than the other two, so I did have a little trouble with the white stuffing showing through, but I just stuffed it lightly, gave it a bit of a squish and it was barely noticeable!

Thoughts on the Pattern

Gnoodles is definitely the simplest pattern of all of the gnomes in the book: she’s made up of a simple, cone-shaped hat (similar to, though obviously significantly smaller than, that of Gnorri (left) and Gnectar (right)), a plain, slightly rounded body, a loopy beard and some tiny i-cord arms. There aren’t any super complicated techniques, colourwork or shaping and, because she’s so small, she works up super quickly!

Gnoodles was exactly what I needed this month (given the fact that the festive season is fast approaching!): a quick, simple knit that didn’t require any faff or inner turmoil: just some good old fashioned gnome-ing.

Changes/Adaptations

Seeing as this was my first time making Gnoodles, I didn’t make any changes to the pattern. In general, I prefer to make the gnomes as intended for my first go and then tell myself I’ll make some adaptations the next time around (even if the next time around is still… very far in the future).

Things I Loved!

There’s so much to love about Gnoodles!

• Her tininess.

Gnoodles is small. ‘Small’ here means the following: a) quick to knit, b) less of a drain on the wool-y resources and c) CUTER than CUTE. I mean, look at her tiny little hat! Her tiny little arms! Her tiny little nose!

• The colour scheme.

I love an autumnal colour scheme and I think this one is so cosy and perfect! It reminds me of hedgehogs and blackberries and witchy, Halloween-y vibes.

• The loopy beard.

The first thing I love about this beard: you don’t have to block it (in fact, you actually can’t block it, or else you’ll end up with a curly beard). The second thing I love about this beard: the fact that it looks like spaghetti (which I’m guessing is what inspired Gnoodles‘s name?). I too love spaghetti, so this feels very fitting.

Things I Didn’t Quite Love…

There was only one major problem that I ran into with Gnoodles…

• Stuffing Gnoodles (particularly with the weighted stuffing).

Gnoodles is very small (have I mentioned that?) and while that made stuffing her with the fluffy stuffing a little challenging, it made stuffing her with the weighted pellets an absolute ordeal. I’m seriously considering buying myself a funnel for future gnomes because this process? It was painful. Pellets, everywhere! Gnoodles, unstuffed! Me, losing the will to live! If I made Gnoodles again, I would a) use the aforementioned, currently non-existent funnel and b) consider adding the weighted stuffing before Round 37 (as opposed to after), to give myself a little more room to play with.

Final Thoughts

I love Gnoodles. I love her for her tininess, her colour scheme and the fact that, after leaving my recent gnomes right to the wire, I worked her up early on in the month, super quickly and easily and, as a result, saved myself a whole load of stress.

It also makes me feel very at peace that I have now made (at least) one of each of the 8 gnome patterns in The Gnomes of Grimblewood: I feel like I have a solid gnome base now and I can start having even more fun with them!

There’s one post left in this series: I’ll be participating in the December MKAL (mystery knitalong), ‘Gnandad’s Grand Adventure‘ for my December gnome! The December MKALs are daily affairs, so it’ll be a whole new experience for me! I can’t wait to see how Gnandad ends up! Because this is an MKAL, I won’t be able to post about it until January, so keep an eye out for it then.

Fear not, though, because I have another festive gnome up my sleeve that I will be sharing in December, just to bring some gnome-y joy to your festive season. Stay tuned!

If you're interested...

You can buy The Gnomes of Grimblewood on Amazon here.

You can find the pattern for Gnoodles on Ravelry here.

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

Gemma

xxx