Scandinavian Gnome and Birdhouse Christmas Ornaments

Irina @nordiccrafter and I @stitchingnotes are about to start week two of our Sip Tea and EPP Christmas Sew Along. It is a lot of fun and you still have time to join us as we are going to share more projects, more ideas and more inspirations over the next few weeks on our Instagram accounts @nordiccrafter and @stitchingnotes. Last week we shared two cute ornaments: a Scandinavian Gnome designed by Irina and Birdhouse designed by me a while back.

When Irina sent me her Scandinavian Gnome pattern for our sew along, I dropped everything I was doing at that very moment and ran to my sewing space to pick the fabrics for this make. I was too excited as I knew right away that it was going to be ADORABLE.

Here is the link for Irina's Scandinavian Gnome tutorial.

I picked Japanese linen (the one I use for all my sewing) for the body. I wanted my Gnome to look and feel a bit hygge and to me it's always linen. For the hat I settled on the beautiful polka dot Zweigart cross stitch linen that it quite expensive and I keep it only for special projects. 

I did not have a pom pom for the nose so as any material for the beard. I expressed my concerns to Irina, but she assured me that I would come up with a plan. She was right. My first plan was to simply use white cotton for the beard and then quilt it with wavy lines. Luckily, I remembered about the felt wool I used to make acorns. I was curious to give it a go. It turned out I had some wool in a lovely shade of pink that I immediately rolled into a ball that became a nose. The beard was a bit trickier to make, but I managed. I had to take my Gnome to a "barber shop" to trim his bushy beard and it was fun.

Here is my video tutorial for making your own pretty balls if you need some help.

You can find the tutorial for the Birdhouse ornament here.

You can also watch an easy and quick tutorial on YouTube. Happy sewing, Larisa xo