June Strawberry Gnome C2C Crochet

Happy June! Since it’s strawberry season, we thought strawberries would be the perfect theme for this months gnome! The hat is designed as an upside down strawberry with the leafy green brim. There are several ways you can make the seeds. I am providing a few different graphs and will talk all about them below. This is the 6th gnome in our 2022 Gnome Project which means we are halfway through the year! If you are new to the gnomes, Jen from Day by Day Clay and Crochet Group and I have team up for a very fun YEAR-LONG collaboration! Each month Jen will create a Gnome Polymer Clay Crochet Hook and I will create a matching Gnome Corner-to-Corner Crochet block. Our designs will be holiday and seasonal themed so for the month of January we made a Winter Gnome, February we created a sweet Valentine Gal Gnome, March we have a Leprechaun, April is an Easter Bunny, May sports a sweet spring Tulip Flower, and June is Strawberries!

At the end of the 12 months I will be stitching the gnomes together to make a large blanket! The blanket panels will sit 4 across so this June panel will sit under our valentine gnome.

Get the January Gnome HERE

Get the February Gnome HERE

Get the March Gnome HERE

Get the April Gnome HERE

Get the May Gnome HERE

Be sure to use the hashtag #2022gnomeproject in your social media posts so we can all follow along and see your finished gnomes!

Below is a sneak peek picture of Jen’s June Gnome polymer clay tulip cane! Jen makes the hooks (and posts them for sale in Day by Day Clay and Crochet Group) and I make the crochet patterns (which are posted for free here each month)! I love hooks with polymer clay handles because not only are the designs fun, festive, and cute, but they create an ergonomic handle which helps to ease pain and tension caused by the motions of crochet. Read more about these crochet hooks HERE.

I’m using colors from our previous designs so hopefully you have many of these yarns on hand. You will need these colors from the Red Heart Super Saver line: Cherry Red, Lemon Yellow, Spring Green, and Orchid (or whatever color you used for the Bunny Gnome hat). Of course feel free to get creative and use whatever yarn colors you like!

Materials:
– Red Heart Super Saver Yarn in Cherry Red, Lemon Yellow, Spring Green, Orchid, White
– You probably won’t need more than one skein of taupe brown for the gnome nose. Use the same skein for all 12 or change it up and use any color of your choice for the nose! Feel free to choose your own hair color as well. Change it up or use white for the beard/braids.
– Size H Crochet Hook
-Tapestry needle
– Pixel Graphs

I have a few options for you! You can crochet the seeds right into the C2C but beware that they will be square. The graph with the yellow seed squares will probably look best if you are using the popcorn stitch instead of corner to corner crochet. I suggest using the graph with the solid red hat and then stitching on the seeds afterwards. I am also providing a graph with a small strawberry if you prefer. You will also need to stitch on the seeds at the end. And of course I am also giving you boy and girl gnome options!

June Boy Gnome with SEEDS
Boy Gnome without SEEDS
June Girl Gnome
Boy Gnome with Strawberry

Finished Size of the Gnome Crochet Rectangle: 20 inches tall x 14 inches wide

Corner-to-Corner Crochet lets you turn almost any image into a pixel graph and then from a pixel graph into a crocheted piece! The Corner-to-Corner technique basically means the you start in one corner (the lower right hand is most common place to start) and crochet diagonally in rows until you get to the other corner. You follow the pixel graph to create the color changes that make up the picture of the gnome. One pixel square = a chain 2 + 3 HDC stitches. Please note that I am using HDC stitches for the C2C instead of DC. You can use either! The DC is more common but keep in mind that your gnome rectangle will end up slightly bigger if using Double Crochet.

If C2C is confusing to you, don’t worry, my friends at The Crochet Crowd have the perfect beginner tutorial! And the best part is that they chose to use a few of my projects as the examples so you can’t go wrong! Get The Crochet Crowd Corner-to-Corner Crochet using HDC (half double crochet) HERE.

I have also created a C2C YouTube Tutorial using the tulip flower from our May Gnome:

Big THANK YOU to Jennifer Freeman of “My Beautiful Disasters” (Find her HERE on FB!) for writing out the C2C written pattern for the January, February, March, April, May, and June Gnomes (and the bonus gnome patterns below as well)! This is very helpful since many of you like to use the written rows to crochet instead of following the graph. She also added a ton of fun detail to her June gnome and I had to include it in this post so you could get some ideas on how to customize this cutie!

June Gnome WRITTEN PATTERN Boy with seeds hat

WRITTEN PATTERN Girl no seeds

WRITTEN PATTERN Boy and Girl with just the strawberry on hats

WRITTEN PATTERN Boy no seeds hat

Diane of Stitch Therapy is making the gnomes using the POPCORN STITCH! I love the way the strawberry seeds look using the popcorn stitch. Thank you Diane for writing up the popcorn stitch patterns for all the months!

GET THE POPCORN STITCH STRAWBERRY GNOME HERE

To stitch on the seeds, take your tapestry needle and weave a strand of yellow yarn 3 times around the same spot. Fasten off and weave in ends. Or you could stitch on crocheted seeds!