Mochimochi Friends

As some of you have anticipated, the pattern for the couches that I made a while back for Plush You SF (sans mini Dust Bunnies) will be in Knitting Mochimochi! The pattern is called Grouchy Couch, and it is one of the more involved projects in the book, incorporating stranded color knitting and a number of pieces to assemble with mattress stitch.

Among the brave testers who tried out the pattern for me last year is beforesunrise, who knitted up this awesome black-and-neon-pink couch with crazy googly eyes!

Her Grouchy Couch makes me think of a darker Pee-Wee’s Playhouse from an alternate universe. (Speaking of which, did you hear that Paul Reubens is bringing his live show to Broadway in the fall? No tickets for me, but it still makes me happy.)

Testers—if you tested a pattern from Knitting Mochimochi, you can now share your project photos on Ravelry (and don’t forget the Mochimochi Group on Flickr)! There isn’t a Ravelry listing for the book yet, but you can list the book as the source of the pattern, and please link to it on Amazon in your project description.

Josh emailed me with photos of a happy accident that he had with the Tiny Lion pattern—when he had some trouble making the mane for his pink lion, he just turned it into a little pig instead!

Way to go, Josh!

I released the Puppet Love pattern about a year ago, but did I ever tell you how it came to be? The pattern was originally commissioned by a New York knitter named Katy, whose brother is a clinical psychologist who works with children. He had asked her to knit some hand puppets for him to use with his younger clients, and she was in need of a basic puppet body shape that she could modify to make into different types of people and animal puppets.

I worked with her to come up with a size and shape that was best for what her brother needed, and since last year, Katy has been hard at work making all kinds of puppets for him! Here are some of her photos.

I asked Katy to tell me a bit about the different characters she’s created, and this is what she said:

I made one for myself and ten for him. I sent him a picture of the yarn/unfinished puppets and asked him what he wanted each color to be. He sent me back a list. The ideas were mostly his. The execution of the ideas were mine.
He specifically asked for three different kinds of puppets. First, there is a family – Mom, Dad, Girl, and Boy. Obvious choices to act out events in the childs’ life. Second, there are some animals – Bird, Lion, Whale. I don’t know what the inspiration was for these, possibly the colors. The lion is my personal favorite. Third, there are what I call movie stars – Godzilla, Vampire, Avatar. I’m guessing recent movies inspired the choices, but we did need some fantasy creatures too. His bosses think they are great and from what I understand they are all using them in their practice as part of the play therapy toys.

I was so happy to hear that she’s getting a lot of use out of the pattern and her brother and his kids are getting a lot of use out of the puppets!

Designing this pattern was a fun challenge for me, and Katy was nice enough to let me add the pattern to my shop last year, so others could make their own customized puppets. And boy, have they ever! There are lots of creative Puppet Love mods on Ravelry, so I’ll have to share some of them here soon.