posted by Lily on knitting

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Meet Synnove.  She is one of the many woodland elves that now make their homes amongst ours.  During the long, cold winter months, Synnove devotes herself to keeping her household’s fireplace bright, merry and warm.  In return, all that she hopes for is a wee saffron bun and a warm cinnamon milk, left by the fire for her, on her name day celebration – the eve of the winter solstice.  For she is a gift of the sun.

I started Synnove with the legs of Tanya’s Baby Gnome pattern but made them a wee bit wider – just an extra 2 stitches wide and 4 rows longer.  I then knitted the body up to where I wanted the arms to start and here’s where the pattern deviates considerably.  In my earlier efforts, I was utterly stymied by the stitching on of the little arms at the end.  I couldn’t get them to look smooth enough or sit in the right spot. In fact, I so disliked them, I never wanted to knit another elf – which was a great shame because Abby had great plans for them.  I must stress here – the above whining in no way reflects poorly on Tanya’s wonderful baby gnome pattern – I would be nowhere without it – instead, it is a sign of my clumsiness.  So today I was determined to knit the whole elf, apart from the hat, in one piece.

I thought, and thought, and thought, and thought, and thought.  This kind of thinking doesn’t come too easily to me!  I have trouble visualising 3-D things.  2-D not a problem.  3-D  – complete bafflement.  So I made a couple of versions out of paper – the above is my final pattern :-)  However, being the careless person I am, when I reached Synnove’s arms, I didn’t check my pattern, and blithely knitted on.  Yes – I had to frog her arms and do them again.  But second time round, they worked like a dream and my elf sewed up beautifully.

For stuffing?  I loathe polyfill.  It utterly defeats the purpose.  Why would I go to great lengths to make my dolls out of cotton, silk, wool and linen, only to shove them full of polyester revoltingness.  I tell you why.  It has been SUPREMELY difficult to source any other form of stuffing here in Brisbane and I always want said stuffing NOW, not next week which is how long it would take to order it over the internet – and it’s awfully expensive.

This dilemma needed thinking outside the box.  Something else I’m not famous for.  However, I had a flash of sheer brilliance.  Don’t ask me how my mind wandered here – I’ve no idea.  I just all of a sudden thought – futons.  There’s a futon factory around the corner from me.  Now the word factory conjures up less than peaceful images.  Nothing could be further from what I found.  The fellow I spoke to on the phone said “Sure!  Come around and see me.”  I did.  And found what looked more like an open air Japanese temple with slatted wooden floors, beautiful incense, cool breezes and lots and lots of pure wool and pure cotton.  Yee-ha!

Now I have a whole backseat of the car full of this ….

Sheets of pure wool batting which I can tear up – and have stuffed Synnove with – and my, what a lovely job it did; and bags of cotton stuffing – that’ll be good for kokeshi dolls.  The best part is they were the futon factories offcuts!  I was practically lending him a hand. :-)  Cool huh!

Look out for Synnove this winter won’t you! I have heard tell that if you forget her name day celebration treat, your fireplace will smoke for the rest of the season.   And keep an eye peeled for her brother Lorens – he is well loved for the kindess and care he shows the forest animals when it’s terribly cold and food is hard to come by.