Yuletide Bowling Pin

I'm trying to get my Yuletide Gnomes done for a charity auction for my daughter's school. Here's a photo of the front:


Here's what the back looks like. I mattress stitched this.

There's a beanbag in the bottom part of the body. The pattern calls for 3 mm needles - which is really a US 2.5. After talking to my fellow knitters, I decided to I use a size 2 needle and I'm glad I did. I've found knitting toys tightly is very important if you don't want the stuffing to peak through.

One thing that I would do differently, though, is to knit this in the round. I've knitted enough toys to be able to cobble together my own version of this. If I do, I'll post the pattern here.

Oh, I used the Sirdar Toytime DK Flesh tone for the face and some left over Cascade 22o green that was left over from another project.