Let me start this off by saying that I get unreasonably excited when people bring me things from far away. So, when I saw a Handmade Ornament Swap hostessed by a lovely blogger down under, I jumped in with both feet. I didn’t dive, mind you. That’s a good way to hit your head.

Our swap hostess is Christina Lowry and here is what I was inspired to knit.

I met Anna at Vogue Knitting last January and fell completely under the spell of her mini gnomes. This is technically my second gnome. The first one had a pretty serious mishap with his pants where his legs were joined together so, he was frogged in a hurry. And this one doesn’t look nearly as good as Anna’s on the cover of the book, but as Bones said to me, “um, that’s probably her 900th gnome”.

After making the second gnome, I asked Lisa for feedback and she said: “WHAT is he stuffed with?”
me: “um, white yarn. It’s what I had.”
her: “well, that’s my first bit of feedback.”
I bought some polyfill on my way home.


Gnome the Third does look a bit more tidy.
moral of the story: What’s on the inside is important, just as Mom always said.

Ps. Here’s a link if you’d like to see what other folks are making.

Tags: Anna Hrachovec, Christina Lowry, gnome, mini gnome, ornament