Copycat Gnomes

August 2014

Very much not my idea. Very much inspired by this and by these.

Here’s as much detail of my reverse engineering as I scribbled down.

Knitting with dk weight yarn on 3.5mm and a gauge of 21.3 sts to 4”.

First attempt (with red flowers at the top) gave a yoke which was much too deep, so ripped back and started again with gnomes placed higher in yoke.

Worked top-down. Started with 65 (plus 6 and 6 for button band). Increased over yoke up to gnome pattern to 128 (plus button band).

Placed markers for 16 gnomes. Worked gnome chart with two sets of increases to 160 (+BB). After last row of chart, divided for sleeves | 20(+6) | 37 | 46 | 37 | 20(+6). Cast on 4 at each armhole when separating.

Worked down from armhole for about 5.5” with increases (m1 x 4) each side of side seam marker every 10 rows to make a-line shape, inspired by Bláithín.

Sleeves worked in the round on DPNs, decreasing on first and every following 10th row 3 times in all. About 6” long from armhole.
Used schematic from Welcome to the Flock as a rough guide.

Neck, waist, cuffs and button band worked in garter stitch.

Messed up buttonhole placing. Fixed it with afterthought buttonholes (method in Elizabeth Zimmermann’s Knitting without Tears).

Was also tempted to try this to tidy up edging of garter stitch button bands.

I used the free gnome hat pattern here.

Main colour: Hobbycraft Valuecrafts Women's Institute Premium Acrylic in 24253 Navy
Hats: Stylecraft Special dk in 1246 Lipstick (red)
Faces: King Cole Big Value Baby dk 221 beige
Beards: King Cole Pricewise Double Knitting 46 Cream
Coats: Patons Fab dk 2358 Iris (blue)
Boots: Hayfield Bonus dk 927 in Walnut (Brown)
Needles: 3.50mm
Size: 3 months
On ravelry: here