It’s back to school time for many, so why not kick off the season with some adorable Petite Pencils made from the pattern in Knitting Mochimochi?

From Greetingarts, Mr. Stubby and his friend look a little ambivalent about this pop quiz.

The pencil made by estars 100 thinks he’s found a clever way to avoid doing homework…

And cupcakefields’ no. 2 is getting right down to business on the first day of class.

I love all of these silly guys! Now I’m thinking I should have made a couple Petite Pencils for my friends who just started grad school. Maybe for midterms!

You can have your own photos of Mochimochi toys appear the gallery by adding them to the Mochimochi Friends group on Flickr.

By the way, we have a couple updates about this year’s Mochimochi Photo Contest: Knit Picks will again be a sponsor with fabulous gift certificates for the winners (yay!), and John will also be traveling to Japan in a few days just to pick up some other cool prizes. (OK, so he’s not making the 13-hour flight just for the photo contest, but he promises to get some neat stuff in between his work at the Tokyo Game Show.)

It’s looking like the deadline for the contest will be November 1st—I’ll make an official announcement later, but until then, you can check out the guidelines for last year’s contest.

(This isn’t a pattern, though—as you’ll see, I just figured it out as I went, and didn’t worry too much about counting rows, etc.)

Step 1: Carve an arch shape out of a block of foam.

Step 2: Measure how big around the arch is, decide how many stripes you want in your rainbow, calculate how wide each stripe should be, and knit a few samples to check.

Step 3: The bend in this rainbow isn’t rainbow-y enough, so let’s see if stretching it out will have any lasting effect on the foam. (It does!)

Step 4: Continue to knit some stripes until they are long enough to cover the length of the rainbow. (This knitting part takes forever, so you probably want to have a few movie rentals on hand.) Pin them in place.

Step 5: Get out your tapestry needle, and let mattress stitch do its magic on the first couple of seams at the top. When you get to the more bend-y stripes at the side of the rainbow, think really hard, and decide that you need to make wider seaming stitches on the upper stripe and shorter stitches on the lower stripe in order to make them bend properly and conform to the foam shape.

Step 6: Finish knitting, knitting, and knitting the rest of the stripes. (Have I ever mentioned that Radiolab is a great podcast to knit to?). Then, hold your breath as you sew up that last seam…

…and it actually worked! It’s a knitted rainbow, without funny scrunchy bumps!

It was the hugest relief to know that I didn’t just waste four days of nonstop knitting making this guy. Now it’s onto knitting a herd of mini unicorns to slide down the rainbow. Also remaining are a river, a cloud, a possible cornfield, and tons more. Just about a month left to do it all!

Just in time for kooky homemade Halloween costumes, we’ll be knitting Naughty and Nicey on October 16th!

Here’s the class description:

Knit Naughty or Nicey with Anna from Mochimochi Land

Saturday, October 16th, 2:00pm – 5:00pm

Learn basic toy knitting techniques to make a set of toys that can double as a quick Halloween costume! Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochi Land will show you how to use double-pointed needles to make Naughty and Nicey – an adorable devil and angel pair that you can be worn on the shoulders – from her book Knitting Mochimochi. Techniques covered will include knitting small circumferences on DPNs, stuffing, picking up stitches, and mattress stitch. You will just have to choose whether to start with the angel or the devil!

The cost for the class is $75 if you already have a copy of Knitting Mochimochi, and if you buy the book with the class, you get $5 off!

To sign up, call the store during business hours at 212-420-8796.

Though he may look a little seedy, the only mischief this tiny berry’s getting into is a spoonful of strawberries Romanoff.

Melissa suggested that cute line, so she gets a free pattern from the Mochimochi Shop!

I thought the captions were a blast, so how about we do another one this week?

Winning caption:
Though he may look a little seedy, the only mischief this tiny berry’s getting into is a spoonful of strawberries Romanoff.

This time instead of a free pattern for the person who suggested that I make a tiny strawberry, I’ll take a tip from Roger Ebert and give away a free pattern to the best caption to this photo! Leave your caption in the comments (one per person please), and I’ll choose the best caption on Monday. Cute and funny will win!