Month: March 2010

Magic Drawer

Posted on by Anna

I was working at my desk last night when I realized that the left drawer in my desk is kind of magical. I always have it crammed full of polyfil for stuffing convenience, so whenever I open it a big cloud of fluffy white stuff appears. The identical drawer on the right side of the desk contains balls of colorful yarn, which is almost as magical.

magicdrawer

I’m often at my desk working on a project with both drawers open, and I feel like the captain of some whimsical white knitting ship in a remake of Spaceballs.

Delicious Dishes

Posted on by Anna

I am so in love with these plates by artist Lisa Grue that are now on exhibit at gallery hanahou.

lisaplates

The plates are Royal Copenhagen porcelain and hand-printed by Lisa. The neon pom-poms are just the perfect touch too!

lisaplates2

This is just part of Lisa’s show “Owls Have More Fun,” which is up through March 26th. You can also download a catalog of the plates from the gallery website. (Click on the link below the “go shopping” button.)

It’s kind of a dream of mine to make plates someday. But I probably can’t hope to make any this awesome!

Hugs + Blythe

Posted on by Anna

This may be my favorite Hugs photo yet!

hugs_taffyyarn

This sweet guy was made by Emily, aka Taffyyarn on Ravelry. Blythe doesn’t seem so impressed by the attention, but those color schemes were just meant to be together.

This cute photo reminds me to remind YOU to keep adding your photos of Mochimochi toys to the Mochimochi Friends group on Flickr—anything added to the group pool is automatically in the running for the 2010 Mochimochi Photo Contest (official deadline TBA).

If you haven’t entered the photo contest before, check out the guidelines for the 2009 contest.

All Wound Up

Posted on by Anna

I am way too excited about my new swift and yarn winder that I got only recently. (I didn’t even know the wooden contraption was called a swift, that’s how clueless I can be about knitting-related stuff.)

winder

See all that pretty green Cascade yarn in the bottom drawer over there? I wound all of it into neat balls the other night, and I could have kept going for hours! Winding yarn seems like the kind of thing that people in the 19th century did for fun at county fairs.

Anyway, the yarn is for a very exciting project that should, with any luck, take shape this fall. For now it just looks like a big thick blanket.

greenblanket

By the way, a big thank-you to Brooklyn General for being host to a great Mochimochi class and trunk show yesterday!

Not-so-tiny Elephant

Posted on by Anna

Since seeing Oiyi’s fun-size versions of my Tiny Things Collection 1 patterns done in worsted yarn, I’ve been meaning to try out one of my Tiny patterns using bulky yarn to see just how much bigger the toy could get. I finally tried it, and it really worked!

notsotinyelephant1

I made this not-so-tiny orange elephant yesterday using Lamb’s Pride bulky yarn and size 6 needles. (The pattern is written for fingering-weight yarn and size 1 needles.) I didn’t have to do a single thing differently—the pattern scaled up perfectly! I love how toy patterns are so flexible in this way, don’t you?

notsotinyelephant2

Speaking of Tiny Elephants, my Tiny Elephant class is happening tomorrow (Sunday 3/7) at Brooklyn General! I’m really excited about it. If you’re in the area and are not taking the class, I hope you’ll swing by the store after noon, when I’ll be hanging out there with a bunch of knitted friends.