Speaking of couches, This blog post by Howie of WooWork the other day had me stunned, both with its poignant story and its beautiful crochet.
If you’re not already following the WooWork blog, you really should be! Howie’s crocheted projects are amazing in themselves, and they always come with a great story.
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.
Don’t believe in unicorns? Then she doesn’t believe in you, either!
Rachel definitely believes in unicorns—she suggested that I make a tiny one back in July of last year. So she gets a free pattern!
Have you used Crayola Model Magic? It was new to me, but I got to try it out last week at an event with the Girl Scouts that my friends were helping to organize in Tulsa. (I have great memories from being a Girl Scout when I was younger, and it was fun to see the scouts of today!)
I was a bit skeptical at first, but the stuff was pretty easy to work with. I liked how it stuck to itself very securely, and how you could draw directly onto it with markers. (It also has this weird lightness, as if it’s made of foam.) It’s supposed to dry in 24 hours, but I didn’t stick around long enough to make sure.
Here’s a blurry photo of a little squirrel that I made with it.
And I thought this snake that my friend Brianna made was pretty cool.
Of course, things like Play-Doh and other “toy” clays always have their limitations, but sometimes it’s refreshing just to see what you can do with something simple.
My sweet husband did some serious spring cleaning while I was out of town last week. I returned to not only a clean apartment, but also a bookshelf organized by color!
I had seen this on design blogs before, but never in person, and certainly never done by John. Way better than alphabetical order.
I’m a little late blogging this, but the May 6th opening of “Lost at Sea” at gallery hanahou was just terrific! We had a big turnout and many of the participating artists came too.
The show is up through June 11th, but if you can’t make it to NYC, you can also see all the pieces online.
Here are a few more photos from the opening—you can see more on the gallery’s Flickr set.
This was such a fun show to be a part of!
And guess what? I’m going to have my own show at gallery hanahou in the fall! I’m excited and a little scared! I plan to share my progress here from time to time, so stay tuned!
If you love the Zelda games, you might also love 3D Dot Game Heroes, which my husband recently reviewed for the A.V. Club.
I haven’t yet played the game itself, but from what I’ve seen, it looks like a lot of good old-fashioned 3D fun!
I’ve just had an amazing week working with Brandi Simons, my good friend and can-do photographer! We were working on photos for a super-exciting project, which I’ll have more to say about soon. But she also did all the beautiful photography for Knitting Mochimochi, and I couldn’t be happier with how it all turned out.
It was just about a year ago that she was hard at work taking the fun photos for the book. While she was working, I snapped a few quick shots, and I thought it would be fun to share a few of those pics here.
Brandi was often lying flat on the ground to get the perfect shot. Here her husband Mike holds the reflector while their neighbor Loren pushes an lawn mower dangerously close to knitted mushrooms!
Brandi shooting in her daughters’ playroom. It gets great light!
Brandi is also a mom to two beautiful girls, Sonnie and Sarah, both of whom are great helpers. Sonnie has been a fabulous model for us, and Sarah is an inspiring muse.
I just can’t say enough about how great Brandi is and how amazing her photography skills are. Her main focus has been photojournalism, but she also does fabulous portrait, wedding, and sports photography. If you’re looking for a photographer in Oklahoma, she is just the best!