Author: Anna

A Tiny Glimpse of Fall

Posted on by Anna

As you’ve probably noticed if you’re a long-time reader of my blog, my “tiny challenge” has gone from a weekly feature to just an occasional one. (Two years of weekly Tinys was a pretty good run!) But making new tiny mochis a little less often means that I have a little more time to actually write up the patterns and get them out into the world.

So more tiny pattern collections are on the way, and I did a little photo shoot with the next batch yesterday. Here’s a peek!

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It was surprisingly easy to find pretty yellow leaves in my neighborhood to serve as autumnal props. I really can’t wait for fall, especially since cooler weather means that my new book is coming out soon, and then this tiny fall collection is coming in October!

Tiny Turtle Stacks ’em High

Posted on by Anna

Thank you all for the comments on Friday’s tiny turtle post! I had no idea that turtles came out of their shells to play so many games and sports.

Our winner suggested that the turtle in question most loves playing a classic game of skill and concentration…

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Tiny’s favorite game is Jenga. Slow and steady is definitely the key to winning, but if he happens to fail he is protected from the avalanche of blocks by his handsome shell!

That comment comes from Debbie!

As you can see, I thought it would be fun to have a demonstration of Tiny Turtle’s skill, but all we had in the apartment were knitting needles. It turns out they make a lousy substitution for Jenga blocks!

For her winning comment, Debbie gets the new Tiny People pattern collection!

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Thanks everyone for participating! If you’re interested in knitting a tiny turtle of your own, I hope to make the pattern available in the future.

Tiny Turtle

Posted on by Anna

Winning caption by Debbie:

Tiny’s favorite game is Jenga. Slow and steady is definitely the key to winning, but if he happens to fail he is protected from the avalanche of blocks by his handsome shell!

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Tiny Turtle knows that slow and steady wins the game. But what is his favorite game to play?

Let us know what Tiny Turtle’s game of choice is in the comments, and we’ll pick our favorite answer on Monday, August 20th. The winner will get the new Tiny People pattern collection!

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Gnome No Evil

Posted on by Anna

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Lately I’ve been pretty swamped with new design work—exciting stuff, but sadly top-secret. When I’m not designing, I’ve also been taking cute photos like this one! I’m trying to slowly build a portfolio of images that could be postcards or other things like that. The gnomes are my favorite models, of course!

What I’m Knitting to: The Violinist’s Thumb

Posted on by Anna

It’s a new blog feature! As a designer, most days I’m lucky enough to spend a big chunk of time knitting, and I’m usually consuming other media as I do so—I listen to tons of music, podcasts, and audiobooks, and (depending on time of day) I watch TV and the occasional movie as I work on my latest project. Since these pieces of audio and visual culture are such a big part of my knitting, I think it makes sense to share some of them here.

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This month I’ve been listening to the audio version of The Violinists Thumb and Other Lost Tales of Love, War, and Genius, as Written by our Genetic Code, a new book by Sam Kean. I love history and pop science, and this book is a winning combination of them both. I imagine it’s difficult to write about the mechanics of DNA for a broad audience without either leaving most people behind with science-y talk or dumbing it down too much. At least for me, someone who never took a science course past high school (unless you count The Physiology of Music, which I don’t, because it sounded like fun but mostly went way over my head), Kean does it perfectly.

As for listening to this book instead of reading it, it’s been highly entertaining, but I occasionally feel like I’m missing something from not getting to see all those rows of Gs and Ts and As (not to mention Cs) written out in front of me. And I’m a little bit distracted by my knitting the entire time, of course, so that contributes to my missing a sentence or two sometimes. I’d actually be willing to listening to the entire thing over again at some point, and I’m sure I’d pick up on quite a bit that I missed the first time. But the book is highly entertaining with dramatic anecdotes from history even if you’re not entirely following what exactly that crazy DNA is doing.

Now the question goes to you, fellow knitters and makers: what are you knitting (or sewing, or tinkering) to this month?

Super-Scary Mochimochi Preview: What-to-Werewolf

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Time to start showing some stuff from my new book—I’ve been waiting so long for this!!

It’s really hard to choose which scary mochi to start with, but I have a lot to say about this guy…

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Meet What-to-Werewolf! He’s a teen werewolf who improvised a costume for those waxing and waning nights when he still wants to be on the prowl.

His wolf hoodie is completely removable, revealing an otherwise ordinary boy.

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Teeny-tiny people notwithstanding, I rarely knit human dolls, so this guy’s special for that reason alone. It’s even more rare that I knit separate clothes for dolls, so that made this project extra fun.

And let’s talk about that mirror photo! It was one of the most difficult we had to shoot—it turns out that doing a mirror shot and making it look like it’s in a miniature bedroom is tricky! Thankfully my photographer Brandi Simons had worked with me on my previous two books, and she knows how to create just the right environments around my toys.

First we had to find the right size and shape of mirror. That wasn’t too hard, but once it was photographed, the black-framed locker mirror looked just like an iPad. So to make it more mirror-like, Brandi tinted the frame brown and sharpened up the rounded corners in Photoshop. We also needed some miniature versions of stuff that a teenage werewolf would have in his room, and we ended up going with a combination of random little stuff (thank you, Wal-mart cheap party favor section) and things we printed out for mirror decor.

Here’s the photo again, annotated:

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It was a huge relief when everything came together, thanks to Brandi. I feel so lucky to get to work with such a crafty photographer. I hope come September some of you will be knitting and photographing your own What-to-Werewolves!

Super-Scary Mochimochi is now available for pre-order from Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Starting September 18th, it will be in local yarn stores throughout the US, and signed copies will be available from the Mochimochi Shop too.

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More Super-Scary previews are on their way in the coming months, so stay tuned!