He may look like a mild-mannered bookish gnome, but Professor Fungi is the Indiana Jones of mycologists (though he never steals artifacts; only tends the forest floor). No decaying cliff is too high to scale, no leaf litter too deep to ford for our studious fruiting body. His intrepid wanderings along the mycorrhizal network take him from hill to hollow and from thicket to grove, absorbing the secret tales of the trees. All with his little basket clamped firmly to his arm. What’s in the basket? The Professor won’t say.

MKALs are giving me life right now, so when this one popped up in a Miss Babs newsletter, I did not hesitate. And I am SO GLAD I went ahead with this one, because it was SUPER FUN and now I have a new obsession.

Sarah Schira writes great patterns and makes the best instructional videos I have ever seen. For the first time ever, thanks to her instruction, I can enjoy knitting fiddly little things on teeny tiny dpns. It’s a thoroughly absorbing pastime and all I want to do is make gnomes!

Modifications:

• I decided to go for a smaller nose, since the one I made was a bit lopsided and it just seemed too big.
• I also decided to forego the feet (he can travel via mycelium anyway).
• I went for a plumper look for the hat/cap. I stuffed and unstuffed and restuffed this little figure half a dozen times, and tried a bigger circle and smaller circle inside the hat, and that is what I ended up liking best. The body was already quite plump, and although I tried confining the weighted stuffing in a tightly tied section of nylon stocking, it still expanded outward more than expected. I flirted with the idea of putting the weighted stuffing inside a piece of toilet paper tube, then surrounding it with fluffy stuffing, but there is a limit to how many times I’m willing to unstuff and restuff a single project. I really didn’t mind the plumpness. So anyhow, my plump cap went well with the plump body and I think it’s all plumply adorable.
• As for the beard, I seem to have twisted it while knitting because two of the pieces wanted to point in an entirely different direction and there was no neat straight line across the top, but I decided against knitting it again and also against blocking the curls into neat tight ringlets, because the wild and wiggly look seemed more fungal and appropriate for this woodsy guy. I really like the effect.

I could not love this more!

Color A: yellow-green
Color B: green
Color C: gold
Color D: orange