I'll Be Gnome For Christmas

It's been a little herky jerky, but there has been some Holly Bazaar sewing happening over the last couple of weeks, starting with these happy little gnome potholders (I decided to actually look at all of the ideas that I've pinned and try a couple of new projects 😏).

This idea and tutorial came from The Crafty Quilter and was designed as a mug rug, but at 6.5" I think they will work nicely as potholders too. They come together quite quickly and consist of a couple of flying geese and a few extra bits. 

I had a bit of a challenge getting the noses to look nice, primarily because my nose fabric was so light and similar to the white. I followed her suggestion for the first pair and did straight stitching to attach it. Meh. It was passable, but looked like it could be improved.

So I tried using a blanket stitch and a slightly pinker fabric on the next pair. I think I could have gone darker still with the nose but there was nothing in the stash that suited. The tight cornering and light fabrics still made for a challenge, but I managed to finish up all eight.

Two are now bound (I was anxious to see what the candy cane binding was going to look like - fun!) and I still need to attach the binding to the remaining six, which will make for some good handwork to do while watching TV at night.

The big question will be whether or not folks know that they are supposed to be gnomes! When I showed them to the Official Cookie Tester I had to spell it out for him. Maybe I'll attach a little tag so that they know what what they are. Either way, I think they're cute....M