Gnoming and Gardening
April 09, 2025
Recently I decided to join a Mystery KAL, a first for me. The KAL comes from Imagined Landscapes who designs gnomes and only gnomes. She has designed dozens and they are all so cute. For the KAL she presents two clues a week, then we the knitters knit the little bits and pieces and try to guess what each piece is going to be. It's been fun and will take about one month to complete, but in the meantime I decided to knit an easy gnome and that is Gnathan, above. He's so fat and sweet. He'll sit here for now so I can admire him, but in a little bit he'll go to live with the other Christmas ornaments and come back out at Christmastime. Also, at the end of the post are some important recommendations.
- Links!
- Imagined Landscapes
- My Gnathan Gnome of Ravelry
- I purchased Sarah's book, Gnomes of Grimblewood
- I used Barrett Wool Co.
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| I'm a little late to the gnoming gknitting party but I'm having a fun time. If you are a gnome gknitter, you'll see I did something a little different and decided to knit the i-cord arms by picking up stitches from the body and knit it down, rather than knitting separately and attaching later. |
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| Clue 1 Looks like a curly beard, a nose, two arms, and perhaps a basket with a handle. His name is Professor Fungi so we think it is his mushroom gathering basket. I don't know what the bottom pieces are. Perhaps gloves or the tops of mushrooms he has gathered? It's a mystery! |
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| Clue 2 Must be the bottom on the body. |
We have done the lion's share of the spring garden chores with the beds now prepared and water lines checked and either repaired or replaced. I've planted 90% of the vegetable garden with 24 tomatoes, a dozen summer squash--pattypans, straightneck and zucchini, a half dozen pickling cucumbers, a bed of pole and bush green beans, also scallions and leeks, plus red, orange and yellow bell peppers, sunflowers, dill, basil and borage. I cleaned up the perennial herbs and have thyme, oregano, sage, rosemary and chives.
- For the 24 tomatoes we planted either one, two, or three each of our favorite varieties, grown from seed:
- Sunsugar, a golden cherry
- Brandywine, a large dark pink slicer
- Mortgage Lifter, a large red slicer
- Kellogg's Breakfast, a large orange slicer
- Pineapple, a large yellow slicer shot with red streaks
- Big Rainbow, a big slicer, tri color with red, orange and yellow
- Big Beef, large red slicer
- Black Krim and Cherokee Purple, both deep dark red/brown slicers
- Constoluto, a ruffled red slicer
- Roma, a red large pear for sauce
- Marvel Stripe, a mottled orange and dark pink slicer
- We also purchased plants from the garden center, one each that we have not tried yet.
- Champion
- Juliet, a small red pear shaped cherry
- Gold Medal
- Jetsetter
- Ace
I'll keep you abreast of how the garden is growing throughout the spring and summer. We hope it's a good year!
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| Daphne Odora. So fragrant! |
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| The camellias are still blooming. |
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| The peonies are just now begging to bloom! |
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| The zinnia border is ready for planting with a new water hose installed. |
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| But they are still enjoying their time in the cozy greenhouse. Zinnias will go outside next week. |
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| The weather is consistently in the 60s and 70s during the day and dipping into the high 40s and 50s at night so it was safe to plant the garden. |
In news of weird--last week I went to Carmel for a girl's weekend and saw these eggs in a shop. MY EGGS, and here's how they got there! A few weeks prior I was decluttering my Easter decorations and on Facebook Marketplace I listed for free these glittered and moss covered eggs that I had made a few years ago, click for the how to. A person messaged me, I put them on my front porch, gave her my address and the next time I looked out my window they were gone. End of story, right? But nope! A few weeks later, my girlfriends and I walked into a pretty home decor/design store in Carmel and my eyes immediately landed on these eggs. It was the strangest experience to see them out of context! I asked the sales lady where she got these eggs and she said the owner brought them in. Turns out the owner lives part time in my town and part time in Carmel. At the same time, and to make this an even stranger experience, one of my friends had used the owner to decorate several rooms in her home. In the end, my friend loved the experience so much and was so happy that she gave the designer a gorgeous painting. Well, that was also in the shop! Lesson learned--once it leaves your hands, whether it's recycled, regifted, or resold, it's all fair, right?
Please watch Adolescence on Netflix. It's disturbing and not easy to watch, and you'll certainly sob at the end, but it has an important lesson we all need to take to heart and is a conversation we all must have. It's about bullying, online bullying, and young people being more influenced by online influencers over being guided and influenced by their own family. It's heartbreaking but a must see. Did you watch it already?
I read Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy and recommend it. Also Kingmaker by Sonia Purnell was fascinating. An Invisible Thread by Laura Schroff, also good. Retreat by actress Krysten Ritter was also a good one. I read a lot, but only recommend the books I truly love. Right now I'm reading Meet Me at Blue Hour by Sarah Suk and I'm getting hooked. Have you read anything recently that you can recommend?
I hope you enjoyed my post and found it helpful and will consider becoming a subscriber to the Knitionary blog. If yes, please click here. I won't sell your email so no need to worry about that sort of thing. I honestly wouldn't know how to do that if I did. I try to send out one post a week, usually about knitting but also about my other loves--gardening, crafts and entertaining. Sometimes I use affiliate links in my posts to help offset the costs of running a blog. If you click on an affiliate link and purchase an item, I may earn a little money. If you purchase the item using my affiliate link or not, the price will be the same. Purchasing from my affiliate links adds no cost to you but could put a little money in my pocket. Thank you for supporting the blog. If you'd like to make a comment, please scroll down. I reply to each comment and that response will appear directly below your comment. If you would like a personal reply, please know that I use the Blogger platform and they do not give me your contact information when you comment. If you would like a personal reply, you can contact me using the contact form on the right side at the very end of my website.
10 Comments
Your garden looks beautiful even at this early stage!
ReplyDeleteThe gnome is adorable.
Finding your eggs for sale in Carmel and having your friend find a picture she gave the owner for sale is crazy!
Thank you, and yes, it was crazy!
DeleteLove the colors for Mr. Gnome. A neighbor used to bring me a peony blossom in the spring because he knew I loved them — a precious gift. Chloe
ReplyDeleteOh that is so sweet of your neighbor. Thanks for the idea. I'm going to give one to my neighbor right now!
DeleteI tend to read mostly memoirs these days. Am reading Ina Garten’s Be Ready When the Luck Hapoens. Very interesting. We’ve had some bullying in our household years ago. The perpetrator ended up apologizing years Laterwhich helped, but did not entirely erase the memory. chloe again
ReplyDeleteI love memoirs too and did like Ina's book. She had a very interesting life. So re. bullying, with social media it is now on steroids and absolutely must stop. I hope you watch Adolescence. Like I said, it's hard to watch but it's a conversation we must have. I'd be curious to hear what you have to say about it.
DeleteSorry, Kristen, my husband is boycotting Netflix and all streaming channels right now because he is disgusted with all the commercials even on Pay TV. Maybe Adolescence will show up on some other channel one day - like traditional networks, Pluto or FreeTV. We still can find good content on TMC, PBS and AMC. But I do feel the loss when something good comes along on the streamers. Chloe
ReplyDeleteI certainly understand that. My husband often says, ten years ago if you told me TV would cost a fortune AND we'd be watching ads, I would have never believed you.
DeleteJust saw the promotion ad about “Adolescence” on my Netflix app. Very intriguing. You might hear from me in a few months if the situation changes
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to get all my friends to watch it. It just struck me numb, but we can change the way we do things.
DeleteYou make my day when you make a comment!