Crochet Tomte | Keep Calm and Crochet On U.K

Here’s the next Christmas pattern as promised! Allow me to introduce Gino the Gingerbread Baker!

I have a notebook where I jot and doodle down any ideas I might get for a pattern. Sometimes they sit there for awhile and then get made (my Nordic Twist gnome for instance I thought of last year) other times the idea just won’t leave me. I’ll keep thinking about it and I just have to get it made – that was the case with Gino the Gingerbread Baker; he really wanted to come to life!

“Stir a bowl of gingerbread, Smooth and spicy brown. Roll it with a rolling pin, Up and up and down. With a cookie cutter, Make some little men. Put them in the oven, Till half past ten.”

With a removable hat and apron Gino is a fun ornament for your christmas kitchen – or remove the holly from the hat and he’s a fun gift for anyone who loves baking at anytime of the year!

Did you know that gingerbread men date from around the 16th century and the first documented figure-shaped “gyngerbrede” biscuits were baked at the court of Elizabeth 1 of England.

Fascinatingly, in history, Gingerbread men were taken up by witches who used them like voodoo dolls. They would bake effigies of their enemies and eat them! I’m now a bit concerned about my 3 year old who finds it especially funny to the legs bite off gingerbread men and cry ‘help, help, my legs!!’ Joking aside people took the witchcraft voodoo gingerbread men so seriously that in 1607 the magistrates of Delft in the Netherlands made it illegal to either bake or eat the biscuits!

My gingerbread man is made from Scheepjes Catona, that I’d got in my stash and the mini gingerbread men props were from the seasonal section of my local COOP and were delicious!

My two girls both love to eat gingerbread men and we often decorate gingerbread men together this time of year. This pattern would be a great reminder of a family cooking session or as a fun prop for the Gingerbread Man fairy tale.

The pattern is now available, from all my usual pattern stores, for you to make your own little baker.

And as there’s still a few days until Christmas and you are looking for more seasonal patterns to hook up then check out my Christmas Crochet bundle on Ravelry. It contains all my seasonal patterns available for purchase or for free.

I’ve just got just one more Christmas patterns left that I’m releasing this year then I promise I’m all Xmas patterned out so keep a look out for those coming to this blog real soon!

Until next time folks! Happy hooking and keep calm and crochet on my friends xx

So I promised another couple of Christmas patterns didn’t I and here is the next! Allow me to introduce the Nordic Twist Gnome!

I know that you will have seen these sort of Scandinavian Gnomes before, they are everywhere in the Christmas shops, and I LOVE them with their pulled down hats over their big noses. I love them so much that it just made me want to come up with my OWN version and so that’s what I’ve done!

The top of my gnomes hat is completely poseable for you to twist it or put it in all sorts of different shapes, all by the way of a carefully hidden pipe cleaner, that makes it a rather fun ornament to have on your shelf!

Did you know that these sorts of gnomes are a common Scandinavian Christmas decoration that have been adopted wholeheartedly by the rest of the world. The traditional word for gnomes in the Scandinavian culture is ‘Tomte’ which was apparently coined by Saint Birgitta of Sweden in the 1300s. These little guys are typically associated with the winter solstice and the Christmas season and traditionally usually don a bright red conical knitted hat.

I wanted my gnome to be a little different so I made him in a modern colour pallet of turquoises and silver. He’s made from Scheepjes Catona that I’d got in my stash, with a 2.75mm (US C/2) hook, some roving for his beard and some silver Scheepjes Lizzy thread just to add a bit of sparkle. And as Christmas to me is totally all about jingle bells I added some of those too!

My two girls love this little guy and I already know my gnome is going to come out every year for the holiday season with the rest of my Christmas makes. I love that my family will start to think of them as a part of their holidays.

The pattern is now available, from all my usual pattern stores, for you to make your own gnomes

I hope you enjoy making this little guy as much as I enjoyed designing him. And if you are looking for more seasonal patterns to hook up if you are in a festive kind of mood then check out my Christmas Crochet bundle on Ravelry which contains all my seasonal patterns available for purchase or for free.

I’ve just got two more Christmas patterns left that I’m releasing this year then I promise I’m all Xmas patterned out so keep a look out for those next week.

Until next time folks! Happy hooking and keep calm and crochet on my friends xx