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Not Christmas, but also Christmas.

Only one handmade gift this year and I don’t even know who it’s for. At a complete loss of ideas for a secret gift exchange lead me to buy a bunch of seasonal lottery tickets that were “gnome for the holidays” themed, then deciding hey, let’s just do a whole lucky gnome thing. I didn’t think I would ever be a gnome knittter, but the stars must have aligned when the gnome idea formed, because the designer was having a holiday pattern sale!

You had me at the hat.

My guy measures 9″ tall by 5″ wide by 2½” thick. I used a DK weight tweed wool with 2.25mm (US1) needles for the hat and body, it was tiring on my hands, but I wanted him to be firm so no stuffing would show through, his beard is worsted weight wool worked on 3.75mm (US5) needles and his nose is sock weight on 2.75 (US2). His body is squared up and made flat on the bottom so he is really stable when placed, I wanted to add some weight in additionto the stuffing, so I packed a mini bubble mailer with poly pellets and wrapped it in duct tape to form a slightly rounded box shape that fit exactly inside his squared up body, if he ever splits open it’s gonna look like he’s packed full of drugs. 😅

Pattern: Make Gnome Mistake by Imagined Landscapes , beard from Here We Gnome Again (without the bobble) and the oblong nose from Choose Your Gnome Adventure.

The full Christmas effect.

I made some mushroom stitch markers, while I may not have always been a gnome girl, I have always been a mushroom girl.

My newest Furls Tinsel hooks didn’t make it in time for Christmas, they were set to arrive on the 23rd, and made it all the way to Chicago and then were routed back to Texas? I have no idea, the tracking is always so mysterious and inaccurate ..maybe they are here and just holidaying at the post office?

So I pulled out my Aries hooks, a cute set from long ago, kind of Christmasy in a cherry cola & cool whip kind of way, I bought them because I’m an Aries too. ❤

I started a last minute stocking because why not, it looks like something from my childhood and I love it so much.

Pattern: Spiral Striped Stocking by Thomasina Cummings.

That time I made a baby gnome hat using the Sweet Lil Pixie bonnet pattern by Ainur Berkimbayeva, I must be feeling inspired by gnome wardrobes.

❤🌲❤

Hats, houses and minor mending.

..oh and cats too, specifically kiki, but she doesn’t care about yarn or knitting, only blankets and leg lofts. Although sometimes she nibbles on the white fuzzed up yarn ties of this old quilt mistaking them for popcorn ..I guess I can see the confusion.

I finally got around to making Jason a 1898 hat, and I’m glad I did, it’s a really cleverly constructed and enjoyable knit. One of its most endearing attributes is the adult hat giving all toddler vibes. I used the same yarn as his Antonio cardigan, for kind of a twerpy matched set in the cutest possible way. The garter brim and earflap area is double thick and cozy!

This is real life. I bought the Swearwolves patch from Timid Cryptids way back in 2018 and just now put it on a hat, the hat was one of my first knits (also from way back when) that nobody loved, but now it fits the mood so much better.

Remember this pretty pale lavender Olso hat from last year, I never got around to blocking it, I never wore it and I was feeling pretty blah about it, so one day without much thought I went wild and overdyed it, I set out to give it a light peachy tint (the color was called Peach Blush) ..I think I might have over did it a bit.

This isn’t the color I had hoped for, and I wasn’t expecting the Peach Blush to wipeout almost every single speckle, but actually I love it, and goddammit blocking is the stuff, now it’s so tidy and perfect.

Be weary that triple brim takes FOREVER to dry.

A kerchief sewn from fabric Lex block printed for me, I can spot the 1900 house and our old westside apartment. ♡

It’s always the toes, sometimes the heel and with these ones the cuff too, it’s just like that sometimes. Anyways, a cute knitted on patch is my preferred mending method, I start by picking up stitches in a solid area a few rows under the hole or thin spot, making sure I pick up more than I need to ensure the patch will be wider than the damage, then knit/purl back and forth until the patch covers the area, you can pick up stitches on each side as you work to attach the patch so there’s minimal finishing or sew them down after, graft or whipstitch the top and it’s done.

Real Quick

Garter stitch and i-cord, now it’s all I want, but give it to me unfussy, quick and super wearable. Ok, so this shawl is wonderfully uncomplicated, really, it’s worked from one tip to the other with gentle increases along one edge to form a long shallow triangle, while the plump i-cord edges are built in as you work. The pattern lists S,M,L sizes but it seems like it would be easy enough to make it any size and with any yarn/needle combination you like. I had 3 skeins of this good stuff and wanted to use up every inch of it, so I weighed my skeins, divided the total weight in half and will just keep increasing until I hit that number, then start decreasing. Simple.

Pattern: Sophie Shawl by PetiteKnit.
Yarn: Colour Adventures Sweet Aran in Watercolours.

When I really want to have an accurate account of how much yarn I have, I’ll weigh my skeins rather than going off what’s listed on the tag. Some yarn brands and indie dyers can be generous (or skimpy) with their skeins and what is listed on the label can be an approximation or average of yardage/weight, not the actual yardage/weight of each individual skein. This can be frustrating if you don’t want yarn leftover or increase the fear of running short. The tags on my 3 skeins listed the weight at 115g/200yds, but they actually weighed closer to 120g each, so naturally the yardage will be more too, but rather than do the math to figure out the actual yardage (there is a formula to do it though!), I just made it easy on myself and went by their combined weight, divided by 2 and weighed my yarn as I worked.

I used a US9 5.5mm needle with this heavy worsted/aran weight merino, making my gauge a little bigger than suggested, which was ok because I wasn’t sure if I would get to the midway stitch count listed on the pattern, before hitting the halfway weight with my yarn, and having it wider but shorter was preferable.

The finished size unblocked is really close to the largest sized shawl, mine measures 15″ x 90″ and there is so much squishy stretch it will probably grow that lost 4½ inches with wear.