naughty, naughty gnome

So, here he is.  This is the culprit.  The one who rubbed me wrong during his entire creation process.  I wish I had thought to take a picture of where the yarn clawed it's way across my index finger.

  

He's kinda cute for the accusation, huh?  Don't let him fool you.  In fact, it's just what he's made of.  Yes, that's it- it's what he's made of.....

Back in October a fun loving group of lady friends headed to the beautiful Oregon coast for a weekend of relaxation. Lucky for me I was not the only nutty knitter in the group and before we had even found our rental house we had spotted an intriguing sign on the road in.  YARN $1.00.  It was on a yellow plastic sign board out in the driveway/parking area of what appeared to be a private home and shop/garage.  Oh yeah!! We are going there.

Obviously the driver of the vehicle was not one of said knitters or we would have gone there first.  But no, we did proceed to find our lovely weekend retreat, to the satisfaction of those who were not salivating with us (we aren't just nutty, we are also kind).

So, fast forward an hour or so and we are in.  Around to the back, up the stairs to the side and through the door. Interesting. VERY interesting.  Two huge looms, spinning wheels and lots and lots of yarn.  Now before you get too covetous let me tell you that the lovely hand-spun was not $1.00.  My budget for the weekend made me turn my head away to the many boxes down the center of the room.  Apparently a long time customer of our fiber artist had passed away leaving her stash with her daughter.  In speaking with daughter, fiber artist discovered that she was going to take the yarn to the thrift store.  FA offered to purchase what she had for a specified price for which daughter was very grateful.  When FA's husband took the truck to pick up the yarn he was flabbergasted!  Suffice it to say it took several trips and was now taking up all of the space in her studio and she wanted it gone.  Oh the fun of pawing through boxes of skeins, checking labels, tossing them back and forth as we giddily voiced our preferences.  $18.00 later and intoxicated on wool fiber I headed back to the house with my over-sized bag.  It was a tight fit because several of the other ladies had similar sized bags.

So, for all of the 100% wool, 100% cotton and softer blends I came home with, I decided to use this vintage 50% wool 50% nylon for the ornery guy.

This is a very simple project that knits up fast with very little yarn used.  Definitely my favorite kind of project.  I found this free pattern at Plain and Joyful Living.  I have found many of my favorite simple ideas on this creative blog.

I can't seem to rid myself of the image of some poor'ol grandpa wearing a very uncomfortable sweater, lovingly made for him from this thorny yarn!  He's out there somewhere.  So, when you run into what seems to be an unreasonably cantankerous old man just forgive him.  But whatever you do, don't rub his arm.  Ouch!


Blessings,  Debbie