A giant gnome and some snowflakes
Welcome to 2024!
I won’t be making any new year proclamations here. Mostly because if anyone had asked me on this time last year what I would be doing in January 2024, I would have gotten nearly everything wrong! My day-to-day schedule has changed so drastically that I have fully given up on predicting the future. :-)
That being said, I’m glad it’s totally different! I had a lot of wonderful surprises that I would have never have dreamed about in January 2023. I adopted a cat, I took a bucket-list trip to Alaska with my family, and I started my own business. There were, of course, quite a lot of hard and sad bits as well. But I’d prefer to focus on the good, and look forward to some more delightful surprises this year.
As for projects, most recently I have been working on a project that has a firm deadline, so of course, I detoured to knit a giant gnome in the middle of it. I chose the colors to complement the rug in our library room and plan for this gnome’s permanent home to be on my fireplace hearth. In fact, I have plans to knit two more of varying sizes (though smaller than this one, which comes in at 22.5” - it would be a little taller if I hadn’t gone for a wonky hat styling while stuffing) to get a full little trio for the fireplace.
Though now that I’ve measured this one, maybe I’ll make a larger one - this one should have come in at 30” (I followed directions for the medium bulky one) so I’m not sure what I did there! I wouldn’t mind an even bigger one. Regardless, I also have some plans to craft up some more lovely items to finish dressing up this space.
The fireplace and I have a love-hate relationship, because I love fireplaces but I hate the insert the people who lived here before us put in. It’s extremely energy inefficient and does absolutely nothing to heat the house (in fact, it makes it colder!) and it’s largely just here for decorative value at this point. So I feel it could use a couple more little touches to round it off so it doesn’t feel too stark since there is so very rarely an actual fire in the hearth.
In the meantime, I’m dressing the mantle up with a little snowflake banner that is my own design. I am always one who is ready to take down the Christmas decorations ASAP, but it seemed extremely bare going from lots to nothing, so I ordered snowflake pre-cuts from Benzie Design a few years ago. I then designed my own little banner flags for them taking into account the two sizes I had. I sewed a small channel across the top of each. Then I just centered the pre-cut snowflake on my banner and stitched it on using various embroidery floss and sequins I already had. I stuck to a blue, white, and silver palette, and made each and every one different - just like real snowflakes! I didn’t plan out much in advance, and it was a super fun way to just let loose with ideas. I still have a few of the pre-cuts left, so maybe I’ll come up with something else to add snowflakes to! Unfortunately, I just had a look and I don’t see them on Benzie’s site any more - I must have ordered these even longer ago than I thought. But there are still lots of great goodies on their site. I have used their felt for MANY projects in my house and love it all.
But more snowflakes will have to wait. For now, I’ll get back to that time sensitive project. Maybe I’ll even finish it in time!