Author: Anna

Toy Design Class at Brooklyn General June 26

Posted on May 19, 2011May 19, 2011 by Anna

toydesignclass

With encouragement from nice knitters on Twitter, I’ve decided to offer a class on designing your own knitted toy! Wouldn’t that be fun?

If you’re experienced knitter who loves toys in the NYC area, I hope you’ll sign up for my 3-D Toy Design Class at Brooklyn General on June 26th. (Experienced just means that you have an understanding of basic construction and experience with knitting in the round.) You’ll bring a sketch of an animal, doll, or any other kind of character, and we’ll make a plan for how you can turn it into a knitted toy design.

I think it will be a blast seeing what people come up with and figuring out the best design together. A little simple math and geometry will be involved, plus a lot of tricks and techniques that I’ve picked up in 4 years of toy designing.

Date/Time: Sunday, June 26, 1-4 pm

Price: $75

Level: Experienced (an understanding of basic construction and experience with knitting in the round)

Supplies needed:
– One or two sketches of toys you’d like to design
– Worsted-weight yarn in two colors and size 5 double-pointed needles

Down the Toilet?

Posted on May 17, 2011May 17, 2011 by Anna

I recently started working on a toilet design, because Tubby the bathtub needs a friend! I hadn’t given it much thought before, but it turns out that toilets are much more complex than bathtubs, what with the bowl and the tank and everything in between.

To figure out the design, I started by sketching what I think a toilet looks like. Then, I did a Google image search to see what actual toilets look like. (Yes, I was too lazy to walk across my apartment to the bathroom and look at my own toilet.) Then it was back to the notebook for more sketching. Maybe because I’m not so skilled with a pencil, my technique is slapdash: basically, doodle toilets over and over again until I begin to like what I see.

toiletsketch

Here you see I’ve finished knitting a bowl, and I’m trying to decide how to do the rest of it. I’m happy to say that I finished up my toilet over the weekend, but—oh no!—not before seeing Katie Boyette’s blog post about the knitted toilet in her upcoming book, More Knitwits!

Katie’s design is pretty genius (especially because it seems to solve the balance problem perfectly), but I’d rather not have my project go down the toilet just because she had the idea too. Surely there is room in the knitting world for more than one toilet, right? Plus, Katie’s super cool and she seems OK with my going ahead with it.

I still have some little bits to finish up with my design, then it will take a while to create the pattern. (It’s not as complex as Grouchy Couch, but it comes close…) If all goes well, Flushie the Toilet will be out and about in a few months!

Signed Books Now Shipping Everywhere

Posted on May 17, 2011May 17, 2011 by Anna

Just a quick note to say that signed copies of Knitting Mochimochi are now available for international shipping! It’s about time, right? You can find it in the Mochimochi Shop.

If you’d like to request a special message, please email info [at] mochimochiland [dot] com at the time of purchase.

Tiny Factory Propaganda

Posted on May 16, 2011 by Anna

tinyfactory_cuteletariat

This bit of Tiny Factory propaganda comes courtesy of Bob, the winner of the caption contest! That means Bob gets the free PDF pattern for Error. Yay!

We had lots of great captions this time, so a few honorable mentions go to:

Recession? Tiny Factory stays busy because tiny cuteness is always in high demand!
by *Justine*

Tiny factory worries abut his wool footprint. It could always be smaller!
by Katherine

Who’d have thought downsizing could be so cute!
by Denise

Thank you for all the great captions, everyone!

Knitting is for Pus****

Posted on May 16, 2011May 16, 2011 by Anna

I found myself in Soho the other day at the right time to check out Olek’s solo show “Knitting is for Pus****,” which is up at the Christopher Henry Gallery through May 28th.

olek1

(Sorry for my low-quality phone pics.)

The artist has created a living space completely covered in colorful crochet, much of it patterned with camouflage-like designs and with tweet-like messages worked into the fabric. The way that the crochet takes over every surface and hurts your eyes is nauseating and addictive. I can certainly appreciate the obsessiveness and time that that must have gone into making it.

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Around the corner from the gallery was a bike with a crocheted covering that was unmistakably Oklek. It was a perfect punctuation to see right after leaving the show.

olek3

The crocheted work of Olek is something I realized I’ve seen around NYC in the past few years, but for some reason she hadn’t really been on my radar until now. Shameful I know!

Tiny Factory

Posted on May 13, 2011July 2, 2011 by Anna

Winning caption by Bob:
The means of production belongs in the hands of the cuteletariat.

tinyfactory

Tiny Factory is always trying to speed up production, but that might be the least of his problems! Leave your caption in the comments, and we’ll choose our favorite on Monday.

The winner this time will get a free PDF pattern for Error, the only (soft) hardware guaranteed not to crash!

Nipsey has a Drawer-venture

Posted on May 12, 2011May 12, 2011 by Anna

The other day I noticed that my desk drawer that I normally keep stuffing in was empty. I had just opened it to refill it when Nipsey decided he had found a new bed!

nipsey_drawer

It didn’t take him long to figure out that this bed wasn’t as comfortable as he had expected, and it was such a tight fit that I had to help him out. But not before documenting his humiliating position!

Tiny Knits Class at Brooklyn General June 19

Posted on May 12, 2011May 17, 2011 by Anna

If you live in NYC, you can take an upcoming Tiny Knits class with me on June 19th at Brooklyn General!

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Here’s the class description:

Teeny-Tiny Toy Knitting

Take quick and simple knitting to the extreme by learning to make miniature toys no bigger than a peanut! Anna Hrachovec of Mochimochi Land will show you the basic techniques and minimalist details needed to knit an adorable Tiny Panda or other toy in about an hour. Techniques covered include knitting in the round on double-pointed needles, I-cord, and simple embroidery. The finished projects make cute trinkets, embellishments, or accessories.

Date/Time: Sunday, June 19, 1-3 pm

Price: $50

Level: Intermediate (some experience with circular knitting is helpful)

Supplies needed:
– Tiny knitting kit, which can be purchased at Brooklyn General OR Fingering-weight yarn in 2 colors
– Set of size 1 double-pointed needles