It's been a gnome kind of a week. Two years ago I don't think gnomes were even on my radar. Now I make clay and crochet gnomes. They all just have their own personality and it's just so fun. Literally as I'm making them they decide whether their hat is going to tilt left, right, front, or straight up. Some get beards and some don't. Some get braids and become female gnomes. The construction of the gnome depends largely on how big it is.


This gnome is about 12 inches tall and is made on a cone from Learn Fired Arts. The cone is wrapped in paper to make it easy to remove the gnome once it's setup enough. Over the paper is a layer of rolled out clay smoothed out. The hat is made by adding a coil to the cone and then shaping it. Then a ball of clay, flat on one side, is added for the nose. Now the real personality comes out - male or female, beard or no. This particular gnome has a leaf beard. The leaves are made from leaves also from Learn Fired Arts. This is the small and the medium grape leaves. I also added some leaf imprints to the hat. Last a little leaf embellishment on the hat ring. I can't wait for this little guy to come through the glaze kiln.




I've been making a lot of pumpkins and it made me think - could a pumpkin be a gnome body? Yes, yes it can. The pumpkin cutter is from De La Designs. This is the 8.5" cutter. I free formed the hat and used my sweater weather rolling pin for texture. After attaching the hat I added a nose and a little beard. Once the clay has dried a bit I will carve the beard a bit.




Another pumpkin made gnome. This one more halloweeny. I realized I didn't have a pumpkin stamp, but I do have a pumpkin cookie cutter. I used that for the hat and just didn't press too hard. I'll do a bit of carving on that later.




This is 20 gnomes all lined up in rows. This clay was soooo sticky and smelly. I had put it in water to break it down months ago and neglected to put any vinegar in the water. There's a bit of a mold in it, but as it dries out it goes away. It made the clay super wet though and even after a day of being left out it was still really sticky. I made these gnomes and then as they setup I smoothed them. These gnomes are larger than the ones I made a few weeks ago as wine stoppers. I think they're going to be adorable.

Of course glazing gnomes is extremely tedious, but that problem is for next week (hopefully if they dry quick enough).