Author: Anna

Tiny Perching Pigeon

Posted on by Anna

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This guy and all of his friends are guilty of LWC, loitering while cute!

And I have a special announcement today: this will soon be a free pattern on the Mochimochi blog! It’s about time I made a free Tiny pattern, and since June is a month of knitting in public, I hope flocks of Tiny Perching Pigeons will soon be hopping off of everyone’s needles and onto the nearest tree branch, park bench, or neighbor’s dog’s tail. (I just want to see that last one once!)

The idea for the Tiny Perching Pigeon comes out of a project that I’m planning with Stitch London next month during my trip to the UK. I thought pigeons were the perfect thing to bring to London from New York, so I’m going to get together with the Stitch Londoners on June 21st for a pigeon-making party and a photo shoot out in a public place! If you’re in the London area, please join us! I’ll post the official details soon.

Check back for the free pattern in the next week or so!

Sleeping Cats, with and without Pillows

Posted on by Anna

Today feels like a good day for sleeping cat photos. Here are two recent faves!

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Soupy found this nice pillow to cuddle up against the other day. (The pillowcase featuring a bicycle-riding dog came courtesy of my mother-in-law!) Is there anything cuter than that paw-over-the-face pose?

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Nipsey prefers to use an arm as a pillow. When one isn’t available to him, he’ll just stretch out his neck anyway, as seen here.

Alterna- Grouchy Couch

Posted on by Anna

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!

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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.

Model Magic

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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.

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And I thought this snake that my friend Brianna made was pretty cool.

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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.

Rainbow Bookshelf

Posted on by Anna

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!

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I had seen this on design blogs before, but never in person, and certainly never done by John. Way better than alphabetical order.

Lost at Sea Opening

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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.

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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.

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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!