This little Christmas baby is my brand-new niece Nora. (That’s her mom, my sister, holding her.) She was just three weeks old when I met her and held her for the first time! Weighing just seven pounds, she is quite a bit lighter than my cats. Having little experience with babies and lots of experience with cats, I was making constant baby-cat comparisons throughout the visit. (They’re pretty much nothing alike.)

My Christmas present to Nora was supposed to be a mobile to go over her crib. Unfortunately I got caught up in the logistics of the thing, so the hanging part still has to be finished, but here’s what the animals look like.

Since the baby can’t grab onto things yet, and she can’t even see so well, I didn’t get a photo of her with them. But I’ve been told that my sister’s cat expressed interest in the wool toys. Score one for cat!

Needless to say, I’m thrilled to have a niece. She was an awesome way to start the year!

**Favorite New Patterns**

Flushie

Flapjack Frogs

**Favorite Mochimochi Mods**

TheBon’s Santa Smurf

Green Eyed Monster’s Rainycloud Mobile

**Favorite Tiny Mochis**

Tiny Ebi Sushi

Tiny Sewing Machine

Tiny Skunk

**Favorite Tiny Captions**

I am 16mm going on 17 mm…
by Karen

Tiny dyslexic lemon isn’t afraid of being squeezed, but don’t show him the melon baller!
by Michelle

**Favorite Extra-Weird Projects**

Cupcake Planet

Mochimochimochimochimochi

**Favorite Cat Photos**

Nipsey has a Drawer-venture

Soupy is a Lolcat

**Favorite Non-Cat Animal Photo**

Monorail Squirrel

**Favorite Random Cute Things**

Mini Rubber Cat

Yeti Sighting

And that is the year in Mochimochi Favorites! It’s been an amazing year full of crazy cute Mochi madness. Please add your own favorites in the comments!

Maybe you have a pair in the bottom of a drawer somewhere? Go get them right now so you can enjoy the rest of this post!

A very cool person named Jess Mireau took these photos at my 2010 show Greetings from Mochimochi. How awesome is this?!

I didn’t even know that they made 3D cameras like this, but Jess tells me that she used one called the Fujifilm W3, on loan from her friend Cory, who has an entire blog dedicated to 3D photos. Jess is an animator herself—you can see her amazing work at jam-i-am.com.

These awesome paintings are by Ryan Quincy—I first saw them in Berlin in April, and just had to have one (as I blogged a while back). John was sweet enough to get me two of them for my birthday in July, and it just took a little time to get them up in their rightful place.

Here are some close ups, though I have to say they are even cooler in person!

Brandi completely “gets” what I do with knitting, and she knows how to bring my toys to life with hilarious and beautifully shot scenes. She also shot the photos for Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi (coming out in less than a month!), and as you may have guessed, working with her again this summer means that you can expect another book in the future!

Often Brandi will get her whole family involved in our shoots. Her husband Mike Simons is also a professional photographer, and her daughters Sonnie and Sarah are excellent models and assistants.

I so wish I could share the amazing images that are coming from our work this week, but that must wait until the book is published, which will take more than a year! But I’ll be doing some previews from Teeny-Tiny soon, so I’ll finally get to share what Brandi did last year. Stay tuned!