I went for a walk in my neighborhood on November 2nd and was surprised to see several homes with Christmas trees twinkling in their front windows already. And why not? With the weather we’ve been having in Ontario this year, it sure feels like Christmas is around the corner!
I’m not usually feeling the Christmas spirit until right up to the bitter end, but this year I’ve softened a little. Already, I’ve crocheted a bunch of snowflakes (the patterns are so pretty, I’ve wanted to try making some for a while now) in sparkly white yarn and gold yarn. The idea of what to do with them is still brewing in my mind, so stay tuned.
A few weeks ago I saw a pattern at 1dogwoof for cute gnomes made with crochet and wine corks. I decided to use the pattern to make some Christmas gnomes/elves to decorate my fireplace mantel. If you’d like to see the pattern, you can find it here at her lovely site: http://www.1dogwoof.com/2013/12/crochet-gnome-cork-peg-doll-ornament.html
As usual, I always start a pattern with good intentions but end up deviating from it and doing my own thing. I chose burgundy and green worsted weight yarn and for one elf, I chose gold yarn.
My Christmas elves are chubbier and they turned out larger, so the wine corks were too small. The first one I made fell over without the anchor of the wine cork, so my friend Susan, who was over that evening for a stitch-a-thon with me in my craft room, suggested that I stuff the body with an empty pill bottle. Wouldn’t you know it—I just happened to have one in my trash bin so I dug it out and it worked perfectly.
I stuffed the heads with fiberfill and the hats were stiff enough to stand up on their own. I sewed a little bell to the tip of each hat and trimmed them with a row of single crochet in fuzzy white yarn. Then I cut small scarves from white felt, sewed them on and embellished them by gluing tiny red and green seed beads at the neck in a pattern that looks like holly and berries. For the eyes, I just made French knots with black floss. And I used some blusher on a q-tip to give them rosy cheeks.
I had a gold, Christmas-themed tea light candle holder among my Christmas decorations, so I dug it out and my four elves fit perfectly into each tea light groove.
My elves are displayed on my fireplace mantel but they would also look adorable as part of a Christmas dinner table centerpiece.
Try making one. It’s a great beginner project—easy and quick to make.
Create-a-holic Writer 