The Gnome Project: One Woman's Wild and Woolly Adventure

by Jessica Peill-Meininghaus

Overview

What do you do when life is too chaotic? How about felting a gnome? Or 365 of them, one for each day of the year.

Artist and wool crafter Jessica Peill-Meininghaus decided that she needed a project to teach herself follow-through in life. She settled on making one of her popular felted-wool gnomes every day for a year. With pipe cleaners and wool roving, amidst the chaos of raising four children and moving cross-country, Peill-Meininghaus felted her way through hundreds of charming, pointy-hatted, often bearded characters.

Lavishly decorated with photos of each charming creation, The Gnome Project is the surprising and magical story of what happens when we commit to something small. (Hint: It's something very big, as in making life more meaningful.) Here is her inspirational tale, complete with gnome-making instructions. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781581572865
Publisher:	Countryman Press, The
Publication date:	05/04/2015
Pages:	240
Product dimensions:	5.10(w) x 7.10(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Jessica Peill-Meininghaus wet-felted her first piece—a ball—at the age of sixteen. After creating wet-felted gnomes and tapestries, she came across needle felting and was suddenly able to lend more detail to her work than ever before. Jessica has been selling her artwork for more than a decade. In addition to gnomes, she makes felted tapestries, felted books, felted coasters, and felted custom banners. Jessica and her husband live with their four children in Maine, having recently moved from Portland, Oregon. When she isn't felting, Jessica works with children with disabilities, homeschools her own children, and tends to the family's many animals. The Gnome Project is her first book.

Editorial Reviews

04/06/2015
Photos of adorable gnomes lurk on nearly every small page of this book, but don’t be fooled. Those little creatures are indeed sweet—and debut author Peill-Meninghaus includes adequate instructions for needle-felting them—but they can’t save this dull slog. Peill-Meninghaus decided to make a gnome a day for a year in order to develop her “ability to achieve anything.” The book explains how making gnomes steadied her during a difficult time when she and her family moved from the West Coast to Maine. Nothing much happens, though she finds “doing the single-mom thing” hard, and the author doesn’t adequately explain why the gnomes kept her going. “My diligence in the making of these small creatures was steadfast” is the kind of insight she settles for, repeatedly. And the gnomes look so much alike that, cute as they are, if you’ve seen one gnome, you’ve seen ’em all. Agent: Laurie Abkemeier, DeFiore and Company Author Services. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"If you like shaping wool into charming, crafted objects through the process of needle felting, or if you like gnomes, then Jessica Peill-Meininghaus’s book is for you. But it would be a mistake to think that it is only about needle felting, or even about gnomes. Because it is also, and even essentially, about getting unstuck from that stuck place in your life by finding one simple thing to do consistently and well. Because doing one such thing will almost always lead to a second thing, and a third. And then you turn around and find miles between you and the place in the road where you thought you were pinned down forever."

John Kralik

"In one of the most unique approaches I have ever encountered, Jessica Peill-Meininghaus illustrates the powerful impact of adopting a daily practice. With every turn of the page, there was humor, meaningful insight, and inspiration to be found. Who knew tiny, adorable objects could teach us so much about finding our life’s purpose and carrying it out?"

Rachel Macy Stafford