Anna

I’m honored to have some of my recent artwork featured in The Character Compendium, a new book published by Pictoplasma. Just look how beautiful this thing is!

It’s packed full of images from 200 artists who create the most original characters you’ve ever seen. So much cuteness, weirdness, and inspiration! Here’s a look at my pages:

The spherical guys are from my 2011 show “Mochimochi Worlds,” which was part of the annual Pictoplasma Festival in Berlin. And the colorful piece in the lower left was an installation hung at the Lion Brand Yarn Studio in 2011.

I am so in love with the other work in this book, which all way outshines my own contribution, in my opinion. A huge thank-you to the awesome people at Pictoplasma for including me!

I’m super-excited to announce a new pattern in the Mochimochi Shop!

Lucky Stars have been in the works for a really long time. Back when I was first designing knitted toys, about five years ago, a star was one of my first ideas. But it took many failed attempts (and then a couple years in between tries, when I gave up on the idea for a while), before I figured out how to knit them the way that I pictured them in my head. It seems so simple now, but sometimes the simplest designs are the most difficult to work out!

The pattern comes in two sizes—a 2-1/2″-tall little Lucky Star that can slip into your pocket and a 5″-tall big Lucky Star that you can cuddly up with—and both can be knitted up in a matter of hours.

Techniques include knitting in the round on double-pointed needles (or magic loop with a circular needle) and picking up stitches.

The PDF pattern is now available as a download for $5 in the Mochimochi Shop!