kaffe the red

I'm very excited to have splurged on myself for a workshop early in February to learn to knit gnomes. Mom and I walked into my LYS in November and were greeted by the most. adorable. knitted gnomes who were scattered among the shelves. A few weeks later I noticed the pattern designer was going to have a workshop to teach gnome making. The folks that run the store are really friendly, so it seemed like a great way for me to continue exploring town and perhaps meet a few new people. I signed up. Fast forward a couple months and I saw an announcement on instagram (totally serendipitous, I spend like zero time on that platform) that the designer is having a Year of Gnomes to-do on her Ravelry page where the idea is to try to make one gnome a month. That seems fun and achievable so I figured I'd give it a shot. I want to wait until the workshop to learn how to make the 3d gnomes, so I bought her pattern for a cute cup cozy. It turns out that the YoG only counts for the 3d guys, but that's ok. I can do the rest of the months and this was a fun thing to knit! 

I dug through my yarn stash to find some leftovers that I thought had enough contrast for the gnome to show up and went to work. It was so fun I had a hard time putting it down - thankfully a lot of my work that day was able to be done with yarn in hand, so by the evening I had a cozy finished and ready to block. This was a fun, low pressure way to remind myself that I need to be careful about how I tension yarn when I'm doing color work and trying to hold both colors at once. The yarn in my right hand ends up tighter than the one I hold in my left, and things get a little out of whack. It's nothing that made the cozy not coze, but something I definitely messed around with while I was blocking. 

The end result is super cute (here finishing blocking on a cup), and if I make more I might consider going down a needle size to make up for my looser knitting. It fits on my travel mug, but is a little bit big likely because I was trying to knit loose enough that I didn't have my floats too tight. No big deal. I am calling him Kaffe the Red because the orange beard obviously means he's a redhead. 

Pattern: Gnome Need to Thank Me by Sarah Schira (my Ravelry page)

Needle: 2.5 mm and 2.75 mm

Yarn: madelinetosh Tosh Merino Light in Terra, Berroco Ultra Alpaca in Blueberry Mix, and Greenwood Fiberworks Yakity Yak in Lime - three animals in one cozy!