Remember these guys? I’ve been making just a few more in the past couple of months…
Thanks to Koigu (who is supplying me with yarn) and Lion Brand (who is giving me a space), these will turn into a crazy art piece later this year. Look for it in the Lion Brand Yarn Studio in August through October!
I’ll be posting some periodic updates about my progress here until then. I don’t know what form it will take in the end, so it should be a fun process!
John and I are Antiques Roadshow fans. I like the stories behind small artifacts in people’s lives; he likes to make fun of how the “jackpot” winners pretend that they are not going to immediately sell their grandmother’s vase that they had always thought was ugly anyway.
The finds on AR are often ugly, or beautiful, or confusing—they’re rarely cute, like this neat-o 1920s Navajo rug featured on last week’s show.
I love the geometric shapes and the simplicity of the figures—especially the minimalist faces.
As I was oohing and ahhing over it, the appraiser mentioned that the Navajo were reluctant to make these kinds of weavings for commercial purposes because they contained religious motifs. That made me think twice about getting too inspired by it, except in a general way. There’s something a little uncomfortable about the thought of using a motif because you think it’s cute and pretty when it has sacred meanings to a group of people. I think it’s unlikely that I would unintentionally cross this kind of line, but it’s interesting to think about nevertheless.
By the way, the rug ended up being worth between three and five thousand dollars. It’s not getting stepped on anytime soon!
This past weekend at Vogue Knitting Live was pretty incredible! I met so many knitters who shared my enthusiasm for knitting toys, along with many designers and other great people in the business. It was wonderful to share what I do with all of them.
My mother-in-law and sister-in-law helped me set up a smaller version of my show from October in the gallery area of the marketplace. We make quite a team—we were able to stitch it all together in about 3 hours!
We reconfigured it a bit for the smaller space, and made the river the main connecting feature since we didn’t have the model train this time.
My biggest new addition was a giant Mochi girl sitting on top of the mountain and causing all of the goats to tumble down.
The animal skin that you can see in the background is by Ruth Marshall, an artist who goes to the Museum of Natural History and charts the skins there precisely before recreating them in knitted form. They’re incredible to see in person. It was wonderful to meet all of the other talented artists in the gallery—Ben Cuevas, Hannah Haworth (who brought a giant knitted whale!), and Alyssa Ettinger.
I don’t have a lot of pics with people in them, because I was just too busy to take pictures when it was busy on the floor. But I did get a photo of Melodie, who stopped by with the jumbo Petite Pencil (from Knitting Mochimochi) that she made!
And lastly, Debbie Bliss (yes, THE Debbie Bliss) stopped by on Sunday! She even bought a copy of my book and asked me to sign it for her. I was a little star struck.
I don’t have photos from it, but I also have to thank Knitty City and Kim Small from Random House for arranging a book signing on Sunday.
So that was VK Live. It was full of awesome, and I hope I have the opportunity to be there again next year!
I may be small but I can sew with the best of them…oh wait, why I am telling YOU this…you are biased.
This winning caption comes courtesy of Mary, which means she gets a free PDF pattern from the Mochimochi Shop! Congrats, Mary!
We had lots of other great captions, too. Here are some honorable mentions:
Sew…What’s needling you? by Kristal
What did the sewing machine say to the fabric? i don’t know… but it left him in stitches!! by jess
It’s time to meet your maker! by Kitsune
Sew nice to meet you! My name is Singer, have you met my brother, Brother? by Amanda
Om nom nom nom nom by Mary Beth
Don’t laugh! I only “seam” small! by TopHat
You’ve finally found someone who can needle you and keep you in stitches all at the same time! by Rachael
This one probably looks about as hard to make as it was! But I couldn’t resist once the idea came to me.
Winning caption by Mary:
I may be small but I can sew with the best of them…oh wait, why I am telling YOU this…you are biased.
OK, what did the Tiny Sewing Machine say to the fabric? You tell us! Leave your cute/funny caption in the comments (one per person, please), and our favorite will win you a free PDF pattern from the Mochimochi Shop on Monday! (And your answer doesn’t have to be based on the above-mentioned exchange.)
So VK Live starts tomorrow! I’ll be there all weekend, and I’m bringing someone new with me…
Be sure to stop by the gallery area and say hi!
The lovebirds have landed! Now you can knit Coo and Coy: two bashful birds of a feather who can connect at the wing for a heart-shaped duo.
Techniques include knitting in the round on double-pointed needles and mattress stitch. They can be knit up in just a couple of days, so there’s plenty of time to make one for you and your sweetheart before February 14th!
The PDF pattern is available for $5 in the Mochimochi Shop.
And these shy guys are sharing some extra love with a FREE sheet of Coo and Coy valentines!
Just download, print, cut, and give!
As far as I can tell, most people who knit Mochimochi Land toys do so because everybody loves toys (at least in my fantasy world they do!) and they’re quick and inexpensive projects to make. But sometimes I hear from people who have really interesting stories behind their desire to knit a toy. I recently heard from a woman named Tunie who lives in Australia. She had a very special reason to make some Baby Gators (or in her case, some Baby Crocodiles)! Here’s her story:
My husband is a volunteer aviation safety/maintenance teacher for sport aviation and last July was flying over the Kakadu National Park where there are salt water crocs. Some of his students in the Darwin area told him they carry licensed firearms because if you walk away from a forced landing near the crocs, you won’t stay alive long unless you have a gun. YIKES!
As he was flying over the park, our engine failed (due to a broken rocker arm, which is very rare) and he was able to land the plane without injuries to any of the four on board. They barely made it to a small airstrip in Jabiru where they had to spend several days taking the wings off and making cradles to put it in a large cargo container for the trip back to our hangar in the southwest.
Wow, right? To commemorate her husband Fred’s bravery and the team’s successful avoidance of dangerous crocs, Tunie wanted to make them all some toothy knitted crocs from the Baby Gators pattern in Knitting Mochimochi. (The pattern is also available for free on my blog):
For the larger one, she doubled the yarn and used larger needles. Smart!
And here are the passengers on that flight, each with their own new little friend.
Looks like they far prefer the smallish soft version over the real things that they might have encountered!
I love Tunie’s story, and I bet there are other toy knitters out there with awesome stories that I don’t know about at all. If you have a Mochimochi toy with an interesting background, please share it with all of us by adding your photos to the Mochimochi Friends Flickr group! You can also always email me about it at info [at] mochimochiland [dot] com.