Today’s post, though, is all about my July gnome!

Introducing… Gneville the First!

Gneville the First is a tremendously festive fellow: if it were up to him, Christmas really would be every day. The rest of the year, though, Gneville works as a beard-dresser for the other gnomes. He’s especially talented at braiding and is very particular about beard maintenance: he believes that a beard is a gnome’s most important feature. Perhaps as a result of this, he has a deep-rooted fear of goatees (and, honestly, who can blame him?).

Table of Contents

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

Choosing July’s Gnome

This month had a special prompt: ‘Gnome for the Holidays‘, where you knit a gnome with some seasonal spirit (whatever holiday you may be celebrating/planning to celebrate!).

About 6 years ago, my mum made a couple of Gneville gnomes, using the Here We Gnome Again pattern by Schira, as Christmas presents/decorations and I fell in LOVE with them. This was long before my own gnome-knitting days (those particular gnomes are actually what inspired me to start gnome-ing!), so the idea of making my own Gneville, with his complex cables and fiddly little features seemed far too outlandish and I was forced to just admire them from afar.

Tragedy struck a couple of Christmases ago when (yarn-lovers, turn away now!), the original Gneville gnomes were felled by some moths, who flew undetected past our (copious) defences. Safe to say, I was heartbroken and we, as a family, were left Gneville-less (and with renewed vigour in our crusade against the moths of the world).

When I saw the prompt for July, then, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to brave making a festive, replacement Gneville myself (with all of my new, gnome-ing expertise and (admittedly still very minimal) cabling experience)!

The Yarn

In an effort to make my Gneville as similar to his predecessor as possible, I actually used the exact same wool that my mum did (Madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in the shade Tart)! She (very kindly) went stash-diving in the ‘special’ section of her collection (i.e. the section that I am forbidden from going through willy-nilly in my ploys to create general gnome havoc) and found this perfect, Christmas red fingering weight yarn for me, just like OG Gneville. How magical!

I paired the red with a slightly mottled cream shade, which I used for the hands, nose/beard and pompom. I’ve been using this particular shade quite a lot for my gnomes recently: I used it for Gnoddy‘s beard/nose/hands, as well as some of the colourwork detail on Professor Fungi. the mottled shade does make the beards look a little dirty, but I think it gives the gnomes a sort of rustic charm!

As I was using fingering weight yarn (and thus making a Gneville, rather than a Gnancy, I believe?), I used the recommend 2.5mm and 2.75mm needles for that weight. These are slightly larger needles than Schira’s gnomes typically call for, which I assume is because of the cables and seemed to work out fine!

Thoughts on the Pattern

This was my second attempt at venturing away from the gnomes in the Gnomes of Grimblewood book (not including Professor Fungi, who was a mystery gnome) and I am definitely noticing that the individual gnome patterns are significantly more challenging than those in the book. If you’re new to the world of gnome-ing, I would definitely recommend starting with a book gnome, not an individual gnome, because of this.

My main issue with Gneville is his stability: he’s got quite a skinny base (and a very large hat), so, even though his body is fully stuffed with weighted stuffing, he just isn’t quite as stable as my other gnomes and does have a tendency to fall over if not positioned just so. I’m not sure how to go about fixing this for future iterations of Gneville: perhaps stuffing him more densely with the weighted stuffing? Perhaps a cardboard circle at his base? It’s hard to know!

The hat, body and beard all feature some combination of cables and twisted rib (I had some previous experience working cables, none at all working twisted rib!). The instructions for these parts are given in both a written and charted format. Typically, I tend to follow written patterns (charts always seem so overwhelming and, anyway, I am excellent at blindly following clear instructions). However, I’ve decided that I want to start learning how to understand knitting charts, so I challenged myself to use only the charts in this pattern. It took a little bit of getting used to, but it worked out and I felt so much more confident with chart-reading by the end of the project. I did find that charts were particularly helpful with the complex cable patterns because it clearly shows you which way the cables are going, so I think this was a really good pattern to work on my chart-reading abilities with!

Changes/Adaptations

I didn’t make any changes to this pattern this time around: the only thing I did do that might be of note is that I used the beard/hand colour for the pompom on the hat. The pattern doesn’t specify a particular colour for the pompom, but the gnomes pictured use a) a different colour altogether and b) a two-tone blend of the body and beard colours. I really wanted to embrace the Father Christmas-y vibes with my Gneville, so I used the cream beard colour for mine.

I also worked really hard to make a super fluffy pompom! Homemade pompoms are kind of… the bane of my life? They never seem to be as fluffy, dense and secure as I want/expect them to be, which always drives me mad. To make this pompom, I used the 1-inch pompom maker from Clover (the purple one in this pack). I wound the yarn so that the maker was pretty full (I aim for a semi-circle shape of yarn on each side, rather than a macaroni shape, if that makes sense), tied it off super tightly with a double knot, then used a sharp sewing needle to push the two ends back and forth through the centre of the pompom, to help secure it. I then went through an aggressive cycle of trimming and rolling the pompom between the palms of my hands, continuing on until I was pretty happy. It’s not perfect, but it’s the best I’ve managed to achieve so far, so I’m taking that as a win!

Things I Loved!

I already knew I’d love Gneville, due to his special backstory and festive place in my heart, but there were a few things about him that made me extra happy:

• Beard

I am obsessed with the twisted rib detail in Gneville‘s beard: I think it makes him look SO fancy, but also kind of rustic/folksy? I just love it— I think this might be my favourite gnome beard yet!

• ‘Bobble in Beard’ Nose

As if this beard needed any extra points in its favour: the nose is literally knit into the beard?! That means less sewing, less casting on, less time and LESS EFFORT! I’m obsessed with this method.

• Pompom

The pompom may have been a trial to make, but that’s just me and my pompom trauma talking. I think, here, the pompom really adds to Gneville‘s overall vibe: it definitely makes him feel extra Father Christmas-y, but it also gives a lovely finish to his hat!

• Cable pattern (particularly on the hat!)

This is definitely the most complicated series of cables I’ve ever worked and, while I don’t love working cables, I am absolutely obsessed with how they look on the hat: they’re just so beautiful and festive and cosy-looking! I’m not quite as in love with the honeycomb-style cable pattern on the body, but it’s still pretty cute!

• Colour

Red & cream Gneville is just SO FESTIVE and Santa-coded: I love it.

Things I Didn’t Quite Love…

• Working the cable pattern

Okay, okay. I love how the cables look (I actually love how all cables look!), but I just… don’t like working cables?! Is that, like, a blasphemous thing to say in the knitting community? Regular, simple cables are bad enough but… my goodness, there’s a lot of complex cabling in this little gnome and, as a result, the whole knitting process for Gneville is very, very slow. That hat? It felt endless. He definitely required the longest amount of knitting hours of all my gnomes, and the process wasn’t the most enjoyable, but I still love him and I’m still stupidly tempted to make a Gneville the Second, so make of that what you will.

• The hat brim

I feel like there’s something funny going on with Gneville‘s brim, and I thought it was just on my Gneville, but, on closer inspection, I think it’s on the Gneville (and Gnancy) in the pattern too! The brim is worked in alternating rows of knit/purl, to give a mock garter stitch effect. When you pick up the stitches for the body (much lower down on the brim than for other gnomes, interestingly!), I find it really pulls the brim and exposes the knit stitches (as opposed to the purl bumps) more than I would like. I’m not sure how I’d go about addressing that, or whether it’s a design feature in itself (thought I find that it’s the one place where my hat stuffing pokes through a little, which bothers me no end): maybe a slightly larger brim/slightly higher location for the body pick-up might help?

• Stuffing the hat

I love the look of a floppy gnome hat, but I really do not enjoy stuffing the hat with the ‘firm ball of stuffing’ that Schira talks about to get that partially-stuffed effect. It feels like a lot of pressure to get the right size/shape/firmness of the stuffing, I’m not entirely sure what I’m aiming for AND the stuffing can move at any moment once Gneville‘s sewn up, all of which make me slightly anxious and uncomfortable. I wish I could get to grips with this technique (in fairness, it’s only the second time I’ve done it!), but, currently, it plagues me.

• Gneville‘s stability (or lack thereof…)

I mentioned this earlier, but Gneville is definitely the least stable of my gnomes, despite his whole body being filled with weighted stuffing. As I said, I think it must have something to do with the relative skinniness of his body (or perhaps I didn’t stuff him enough?) but he sits perfectly well on my palm, then immediately flops over backwards when I set him on a flat surface (unless I spend a little while carefully positioning him). He can stand upright, he just needs a little arranging (but all my other gnomes seem to fare perfectly well, so this is definitely a Gneville problem!).

Final Thoughts

Gneville isn’t perfect, but he’s exactly what I wanted from this month’s gnome: he’s a tribute to the reason I started gnome-ing, he’s festive and Christmassy and fun and he makes a lovely addition to my ever-growing gnome collection.

It was really fun getting to grips with reading knitting charts with this project: I’m fine following colourwork charts, but I’ve never taken the time to understand cable charts and this felt like the perfect, low-stakes opportunity for that. I definitely feel much more comfortable with the process now and, even though I know I’d still have to double-check the symbols, I think I could work from a chart again in the future without too much bother!

Also, I know I’ve said it before, but Gneville‘s beard might just be my favourite thing I’ve ever made. I’m in love with it (and him), and that’s my main takeaway from this project!

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about this month’s gnome! I’m still deciding which gnome to knit next month… probably something without cables…

If you're interested...

You can buy The Gnomes of Grimblewood on Amazon here.

You can find the pattern for Here We Gnome Again on Ravelry here.

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

Gemma

xxx