I Tried a $16 Temu Gnome Crochet Kit… Is It Worth It?

Okay, I've got another Temu kit for us. This one was super adorable. It looked pretty realistic, like it doesn't look like it's AI. So I was hopeful, and I just thought they were super cute. I love those, I love that gnome thing that, like, they're everywhere. They're so overdone, but these were really cute. So I had to get them and see if it's a scam or not. So I bought that gnome kit. I've got it here and we're going to open it up and see what we make. But first be sure to hit the like, subscribe, and notification bell so you never miss out when a new review, free pattern, tutorial, all that's released. Now let's check out the gnomes. Okay, so I got the kit and it's super cute. It's like in a whole little package and it's actually like, is it, no, okay, I thought hermetically sealed or something because it has a little tear off guy but it's actually open so you don't need that. And as with all of the kits I will only use what comes in the kit. So I want to see if what they supplied will make what is pictured. So in the kit they have this kind of picture picture like it looks like it was actually like printed out of the finished project and then we have the actual printed pattern. The writing on it is super small. I cannot read this even with my reading glasses, so I'm going to need some help to read through that, but hopefully the pattern is well written and I'll let you know as I go along. But let's see if the yarn looks reasonable for this pattern. I'm on number three. I've got another one. These seem to show up in every Timu kit I get. It's hilarious. So this is number three so far of all of the kits I've gotten. Let's see how many we end up at the very end. Okay, so for the yarn, the gray looks a lot darker than what was pictured. It looks like a worsted, maybe DK, not super thick. This cream though looks... Thinner. The cream looks like it's for the nose. Seems like a lot for a nose. But compared to the rest of the yarn it looks much thinner so we'll see if that's on purpose or they're just getting as close to color as they can for these patterns and going with what they can source. So we'll see if we have enough yarn to make both of our gnomes and if it works with the hook that they gave us. Okay, in the kit, they gave me a 2.5, which is usually really small for Amigurumi. I try to do like a 3, 3.5. This stuff makes my hands hurt, so the smaller the hook, the more hand pain. But I'm using what comes with it, so we'll see. I love that they gave me safety eyes for something that has no eyes. I guess I'll just have extras left over, and then I've got a metal, a plastic yarn needle, and stitch markers, which we'll probably need if it's worked in spirals. Thank you. But looks like we have everything we need to make it. We'll just see if that hook actually works with this yarn. It might just be a painful journey for me. We'll see. And then of course I got some stuffing vacuum packed. So I am always curious of how much it's going to puff out. And I just, I'm hoping this is not a bug in there. Okay, it's on the outside. Just a smudge. I was like, hm, don't put bugs in my stuffing. Okay, that was good. Because that would have went straight in the trash and never opened. I have plenty of stuffing and I'll make an exception for bugs and stuffing. But I can't wait to start this one. This one seems super cute. I'm hoping that it works. Let's go find out. Alright, let's just get into it. I'm going to show you these one at a time, and there's a very specific reason for that. I'm also not going to remind you what they were supposed to look like just yet. Not yet. So. This is the boy. He came out right about six inches tall with the hat bend, which actually lines up with what Temu said, so I'll give him that. And he's cute. Like, if I saw him sitting on a shelf, I wouldn't question it. But getting here, not my favorite experience. I made this guy using the 2.5 millimeter hook that came in the kit, and I'm going to double down that I don't Don't think that hook size makes sense for this yarn. The yarn itself is pretty cheap. The plies separate constantly, so if you're not paying attention, you're only grabbing part of the strand, which means you end up undoing stitches over and over just to fix it. And with a 2.5mm hook on top of that, It was almost impossible for that not to happen constantly because the hook was so small it had a hard time grabbing all the plies at once. Another super hard thing with such a small hook, especially with the white yarn, I could barely see where I was going. You have to be like incredibly good at reading your stitches and for my bad eyes, use a very Very bright light to make sure that I was putting my hook into the right place. There are a few spots where it's not as clean as it could be and a lot of that comes because of the yarn splitting and pulling and the stitches pulling out as you're working. So that leads me to the girl. When I started her, I made an executive decision to show you a difference. So I made a change. I switch to a 3mm hook. So, just a half millimeter from the hook used on the boy. And here she is. Let me put her hat back down. As you can see, she is much taller. She came in at about 9 inches with the bent, so it's a noticeable difference. And the shape of the body also kind of changed a little with the bigger hook. Look it's a slightly more elongated, not quite as round. But it was so much easier to crochet with the larger hook. The yarn still splits. That part did not magically fix itself. But I wasn't fighting every single stitch, which was a nice change. And honestly, I kind of love how the way they look together like this. I didn't plan on making him a little short king in this relationship, but it's adorable. Also worth mentioning though, there's actually enough yarn left in the kit that you could make them both larger if you wanted to. So, if you go in with a 3mm from the start, you'll be fine on yarn and your frustration will be much lower. However, regardless of what size you make, there was not enough stuffing included for both of them, even if you were using or making the smaller size, basically. I had to break into my stash of polyfill to finish stuffing the girl, which, side note, Whatever stuffing that the kit... came with is so much softer than like my bagged polyfill so I will give them props for that part of the material in the kit. Now the actual pattern. There's no video tutorial included which isn't the end of the world it was actually a fairly easy pattern but the pattern the print pattern is so tiny like unnecessarily tiny maybe like younger eyes than mine could read it Read it no problem, but if you have any kind of issues, I'm warning you now. I literally had to take pictures of it and zoom in on my phone just to read each section, but, you know, to make it work, but it wasn't exactly convenient. The pattern was like still relatively well written and it had pictures throughout, though they were super small, on steps that might be confusing so that it, I didn't have any trouble understanding it and making each piece. However, there are There are many differences between the listing and what you actually get, and they're not small differences. Now let me show you what you were supposed to get and what I made in a side-by-side comparison. So you can see the gray yarn in the kit is actually way darker than the picture and I wish it matched the lighter version shown in the listing because the lighter tone, I don't know, just looks kind of like softer and more finished to me. The hands and the pattern are flesh colored but in the listing they're red like little gloves which honestly added a lot more character and I would have preferred that. I had plenty of red yarn left over so I did make red hands But, you can see I did not do the ridge that's in the listing pictures, where it looks like gloves. I could have added that, but I wanted to show exactly how the pattern was written. Then there's the heart. It is completely different. In the pattern, it's this 3D winged heart that attaches to both gnomes. In the listing, it's just a small heart dangling from the girl's hat, which is what I chose chose to do, but But using the written pattern's heart. So I made one side of the 3D heart with some chains to hang it, but it wasn't the best shaped heart pattern as you can see. It's a little wonky. And then the boy's beard is also much wider in the listing, which I super like. Way way way way much better. Then the hat shape is different. The picture shows it more fitted. The pattern makes it flare out more like a wizard hat. Again. I like the picture design better for that too. And though the finished size for the boy is accurate, if you look closely at the listing photos, the stitches look bigger and like there are fewer rounds, so I wouldn't be surprised if they used a larger hook and different yarn weight for the sample. So this is where I start to have an issue, because it's pretty apparent that the listing listing photos are AI-enhanced, or at least very heavily edited. Not just because they look different from the pattern, but because they don't even match each other. Like, there's one where the girl has braids in the front and the back, and then you can see a braid peeking out from the boy, and then both of them have hearts. Then there's this one, where the heart string is weirdly attached to both of them. It feels like they kept tweaking the design and the images without ever updating the actual pattern to match. And that's the frustrating part. Because the finished project I made, it's not horrible, I think they're actually really cute. So why not just photograph that? Why create the slightly better, more polished, different version in the listing? It's not something the pattern is ever going to produce. It just sets the wrong expectation going in. So on my scam meter, I'd give this a two out of five. It technically delivers what it promises, but the listing doesn't accurately represent what you're actually going to make. So as I've said in my other Temu videos, pay attention closely to the listing photos to see if they all look the same when shown from different angles and setups, read the description if they actually give you one, and check the reviews. See if someone has made it and if they got what was pictured. So, with all that being said, I do like how they turned out. They're cute, they have personality, we've been through something together, and I actually really like my taller girl and her smaller guy. I'm glad how that turned out. Would I recommend this kit for what's advertised? No, it's not quite. Would I recommend it for what it actually is? Maybe. Go in knowing what to expect and I would say size up your hook. And it won't be too bad. I'll link the listing in the description just in case you're curious or you love the way these look and you want to make some yourself. But tell me, so do you think this is just a straight up scam or more of a case of expectation versus reality? Because for me, the gap between those two is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. I hope you enjoyed this review. Be sure to stick around and hit that subscribe button because you won't believe some of the videos I have coming up exploring this topic some more. But I am Deja with Knit and Crochet Ever After and thank you for watching!