Gemma 
This year, I’m knitting a gnome a month, as part of the Year of Gnomes 2025, a knitalong created by Imagined Landscapes (aka Sarah Schira). If you missed my first two gnomes, you can find them here. Today’s post, though, is all about my March gnome…
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
