Happy news: the Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi Sugarplum Fairies Pattern is now a kit! It comes with enough fingering-weight yarn to make two sugarplum fairies in opposite plummy colors. And it’s on sale for 25% off through December 24th!
Author: Anna
Flirty Turkey has discounts for you
UPDATE: I’m extending this sale through Monday December 2!
This flirty turkey has some pre-Thanksgiving discounts on holiday patterns for you!
All of these are now marked down through Black Friday in the Mochimochi Shop—no code required:
🦃 Tiny Thanksgiving
🐻 Bundle-up Bears
🎄 Generosi-trees
👨🏻 Deck the Walruses
❄️ Special Little Snowflakes
🦌 Teeter-Totter Reindeer
If you can read turkey lips, you’ll know that they’re saying a big THANK YOU for being part of Mochimochi Land with your knitting, your sharing, your follows, and your giggles.
Mochimochi Friends: Keitha’s Monster Boo
Sometimes a knitter goes so above and beyond with a project, they deserve to be called a hero. Keitha Brannick certainly earns the distinction with this colorful colony of Boos! Then she went REALLY big and knitted an enormous Boo for her front door to delight the neighborhood with. He’s a full 15″ tall with a 29″ wingspan! She had some yarn left over, so she also improvised a giant purple spider, as you do.
I asked Keitha if she would share a bit about how she made her big Boo. Here’s what she had to say:
It was very easy to scale him up. I didn’t have a specific size in mind, just big. I found a bulky yarn that called for size 15 needles. It took three 3.5oz/43 yd skeins with just a little left over yarn. I followed your pattern except that I knit him flat, since I didn’t have size 15 double points, and mattress stitched the pieces together. I sewed the legs into the body as I stitched the body closed.
I wanted a bright surprise when his wings opened so I knit 2 sets of the modified wings, one navy and one purple. I couldn’t find a bulky yarn in the bright purple so I used 4 strands of worsted weight acrylic yarn with the size 15 needles. The smaller yarn made the purple wings slightly smaller than the navy bulky which made a nice edging around the inner wings when I stitched them together. When Big Boo is hanging by his feet his wings drooped so I used thin craft wire to keep them spread out. I bent the wire to follow the curves on the bottom of the wings (which is on top when Boo is up-side-down), and slipped it through the stitches where the curves change direction.
I knit his fangs out of shiny white yarn I had from other projects and stitched them on. I found large crystals meant for jewelry that sparkled purple and white to use for his eyes. I sewed buttons where I wanted the eyes and glued the crystals to the buttons. I was afraid the crystals wouldn’t hold well glued to the yarn but with the right glue they might have been fine. Boo won’t be used as a toy so it’s not as critical to watch all his parts!
Thank you, Keitha, for sharing all about your process!
If you’re inspired to emulate Keitha’s creative genius, you may want to get started now: find the Boo pattern in my shop and on Ravelry. And of course, Keitha gets a $25 credit to the Mochimochi Shop for her brilliance! (Keep tagging your projects with #mochimochiland and the same could happen to you!)
Happy Meowoween
Happy Halloween to all the creepy cats!
New Classes at Vogue Knitting LIVE NYC
Fun news: I’m teaching two classes at Vogue Knitting Live NYC in January!
For advanced beginners, there’s Knit a Pocket Narwhal, a project-based class in which you’ll learn some basic toy techniques (while knitting flat or in the round, whichever you prefer) and come away with a fun-size little narwhal to accompany you for the rest of the weekend.
For intermediate and advanced knitters, I’m offering a Design Your Own Tiny Toy workshop, where you can work with basic shapes to modify and make your own, or come with a more complex design for us to figure out together. (Knit tiny versions of your pets! Your friends! Your favorite cartoon characters!)
Both classes will be held on Thursday January 16th.
I don’t teach very often, so I’m psyched! I recommend signing up ASAP!
Introducing the Barnyarn Bunch!
🎵 Here’s the story of a big red barn
Who was hungry for some animals to munch
But he didn’t really want to eat his buddies
That’s the way they all became the Barnyarn Bunch 🎵
The Barnyarn Bunch pattern collection is now available as a PDF download! Find it in the Mochimochi Shop and also on Ravelry.
In addition to patterns for a tiny pig, tiny cow, tiny horse, and tiny chicken, you get modifications for a tiny donkey and a penny-pinching piggy bank who will help you save up to TWO pennies. (You’re probably feeling richer already just reading about it.)
This is one of the most involved pattern collections I’ve put together, and I’m so excited to have it out in the world! Big thanks to my tech editor, Marilyn Passmore, and to my testers Amanda, Dorien, Rebecca, Lalie, and Linda.
Keep an eye out for more fun Barnyarn animations coming to Instagram and Facebook!
Stop Motion Aftermath
I had the pleasure of making dinosaur-themed stop-motion videos with a great group of middle schoolers at the ELA Area Library in Lake Zurich, IL, on Saturday.
Most of the devices we were using weren’t connected to the internet, so unfortunately I don’t have finished projects to share, but you can see from the aftermath just how much creativity was going on!
The library currently has an impressive exhibit on dinosaurs—worth checking out if you’re in the area!
The Tiny Alpaca Kit is Now a Feliciti kit!
I got some bad news earlier this year: The alpaca blend yarn that I’ve used to knit tiny alpaca since 2015 was discontinued! Not only was I making all my alpaca out of this yarn, it was also the yarn that I included in all of my tiny alpaca kits. 😢
BUT THEN in April an opportunity presented itself: the perfect local source appeared at YarnCon: Deitricks’ Alpaca Ranch from Prophetstown, IL!
Just look at this handsome herd! (And if you live in the area, you can meet them: Deitricks offers plenty of ways you can commune with alpaca, from summer camps, to birthday parties, to yoga!)
Tracy had nine skeins of the softest, fluffiest fingering-weight alpaca yarn made from the fleece of a beautiful alpaca named Feliciti that she let me take home.
(Can’t you just feel the softness through the screen?)
So for a limited time, the Tiny Alpaca Kits available in my shop are tiny Feliciti kits! (As before, the yarn for the face and legs is Cascade Heritage, a wool/nylon blend, which contrasts nicely with the fluffy alpaca.)
We have enough Feliciti yarn to make about 90 kits for now, and this is a supply that may or may not be replenished with the same lovely yarn. So get yours now! UPDATE: I just got 11 more skeins, yay!
Each kit contains the intermediate-level pattern (hello, short rows!) and enough yarn and stuffing to make 2 tiny alpaca. 🦙❤️🦙
And of course, the pattern is also available as a PDF download.