Now you can knit teeny-tiny mochis in German!
This translation of Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi from Topp came out at least a year ago, but sometimes it takes a while for me to get notified and receive copies. It was a nice surprise, especially since I know there are so many knitters in Germany, and I received a warm reception when I brought Mochimochi Worlds and The Wooly Woods to Berlin.
I have a few extra copies—if anyone within the US has a good reason to receive one, please let me know!
The prize yarn from Bonney’s World’s Biggest Stash has arrived!
The three winners of the Mochi Mod Contest will each receive six balls of Sassy Skein yarn in a rainbow of colors! Bonney loves this yarn because it’s colorful (obviously) and it’s 100% cotton, making it perfect for washcloths and toys that will be played with.
You know, I just visited the Sassy Skein blog to read that they have closed their operations. Sad! So, this is a good opportunity to get some of their yarn before it’s really hard to find.
You have until July 5th to enter the contest—details here.
We can make this a safer, less fearful world.
Update: Congratulations to the winners! (And thank you for more than 100 entries!)
Update: This contest is now closed for entries. Thank you for all the mods! I’m very excited by what we got. I’ll post the winners soon!
Update: Here’s the awesome rainbow of yarn that our top three winners will receive!
It seems like every week I’m pleasantly surprised by some cool new mod that someone has done with a Mochimochi Land pattern, ideas that make me say Why didn’t I think of that?? Your mods are so genius, I want to see more! So now I’m announcing the first ever Mochi Mod Contest, to get more mods out of you.
What is a mod? It’s short for modification, that thing that knitters do naturally when they’re making something using a pattern, and adding their personal twist that transforms the project into something different. It can be as simple as GnomeGranny’s Star Wars Chickens, or as complex as this stripy mustachioed Roary by Knittist24, or as monstrously cute as the Sully and Mike by Amanda that you see above.
Let’s get to the details!
Eligibility
This contest is open to knitters worldwide. To be eligible, your photo must contain at least one knitted toy made from a Mochimochi Land pattern. (This can be a pattern from the Mochimochi Shop, a pattern from one of the Mochimochi books by me, or one of the free patterns on the Mochimochi Blog.) The pattern SHOULD be modified in some way, but it should have been made with the basic instructions from a specific Mochimochi Land pattern.
We’re looking for originality in your mod—not necessarily the most professional-looking photo. We want everyone to enter!
How to enter
There are three ways to enter. Please choose just one, and submit no more than 6 photos.
1) Post your photo(s) on Instagram with the hashtag #mochimodcontest AND a note saying which Mochimochi Land pattern you based your mod on.
2) Post your photo(s) to the Mochimochi Land Facebook page with the hashtag #mochimodcontest AND a note saying which Mochimochi Land pattern you based your mod on.
3) Add your photo(s) to the Mochimochi Land Flickr group with the hashtag #mochimodcontest AND a caption saying which Mochimochi Land pattern you based your mod on.
Deadline
The last day to enter the contest is July 5th, 2016. We’ll choose three winning mods shortly thereafter, plus one winner who will be chosen at random!
Prizes!
Each of our top three winners will receive a $20 Mochimochi Land gift card and a rainbow of yarn from the World’s Biggest Stash!
The randomly chosen winner will get a random surprise prize!
(Thanks to my mother-in-law, Bonney Teti, for diving into her stash for prizes!)
Image usage
Please note that any images submitted to this contest may be used by me for promotion of this contest or a future contest.
I can’t wait to see the mod madness!
Kathleen was slow to send birthday wishes to her sister, so she came up with an extra charming use for a tiny knit snail!
Here’s the explanation she shared on Ravelry about the project:
I don’t like shopping for greeting cards because I can never find the right one or even one that I sort of like. I usually try to figure something out. My sister’s and her husband’s birthdays are in March, and I’m super late with my acknowledgment of their big days, so I figured that a 3-D card was in order. I think I need to make more of these. :)
To make the snail stay upright on the card, I had to sew him on. After I mounted the white cardstock onto the orange cardstock, I made two set of parallel holes with an x-acto knife, making sure they were well under the snail. Then using the body color yarn, I went up through the bottom of the card and stitched the snail to it using the holes. I tied a bow with the ends of the sewing yarn on the underside of the card in case the recipient wants to easily remove the snail. (That’s what my sister did!)
I love that people are constantly coming up with creative new things to do with tiny mochis! Stay tuned for a new contest that’s all about highlighting fun new ideas.
By the way, the tiny snail pattern is free, right here: Snails and Slugs
I have to say, Peak Alpaca is one of my favorite Mochimochi Land animations yet! (Well, they’re all my favorites, especially the ones made with Maureen.)
We’re always so busy on the set that I don’t remember to take too many photos of our work, but here’s a shot I thought to take of our setup for the mountain climbing scene.
All of the mountains were just pieces of knitted fabric draped over foam rubber.
Here’s one more set photo, for our long shot of the mountain.
There were a lot of tricky things about this animation, including getting the pacing right (slow is hard, we discovered) and the physics of things falling down a mountain. The apple bouncing at the end required a shot-by-shot diagram, and then plenty of Photoshop to erase the wires.
Peak Alpaca is the third in our tiny sheep trilogy. Also see Happy Baa-lentine’s Day and Funky Fleece!
A pack of alpaca (one’s a sheep, technically) embark on an epic journey to satisfy their sweet tooth.
Thanks to Maureen Boyle for her animation help, and William Steffey and Tim Koelling for music.
In other alpaca news, I now have tiny alpaca kits with REAL alpaca yarn!
If you’ve taken a look at our Flickr group recently, you’ve been greeted with tiny gnomes traveling to all sorts of places—from the shore,
to a temple,
to a rock concert,
to the Biosphere in Montreal (NOT Epcot, as I originally thought!),
to Chicago,
to Austria!
These jet-setting gnomes were all shared by Estelle, who clearly took an epic journey with her gnome companions. In fact, there were so many traveling gnomes, as I was scrolling through the photos I was wondering just what was up…. So I got in touch with Estelle, who lives in Quebec, and I learned that this is a whole project with many different contributors!
This is what she had to say about Projet Gnome:
Last year I went on a 3 month backpacking trip with my sister to New-Zealand, Thailand and India. A few weeks before we left I was looking for ideas for small gifts to make for our future hosts, and I stumbled upon your website. I just fell in love with the gnomes and thought I’ll knit one for myself and take pictures of him at different places we go. (A bit like in the movie Amelie with Audrey Tautou)
Then I knitted a lady friend for Mr Gnome, then some more gnomes, and I started giving them to people I met on my trip so they make them travel and take pictures.
I kept on knitting gnomes when I came back home and gave them to fellow travellers. In a way I got to keep on travelling a bit this way! So far I might have knit about 30 gnomes and they travelled to more than 15 countries, thanks to the wonderful travellers/photographers/artists who took part in the Gnome Project.
For me, this is really about sharing, creating, and finding beauty and fun in small things.
How fun! Of course, Estelle’s project reminds me of Project Gnome Diplomacy, which many of you participated in last year, when I brought more than 300 of your gnomes to Seoul to be handed out to people who visited the gallery where they were displayed. I love that the gnome is a symbol of adventure and friendship that so many people recognize and want to take part in.
Anyone can join Projet Gnome by knitting a gnome and taking it on a trip, and there’s even a Facebook group for the intrepid gnomes and their escorts. I just joined myself!
You can find the tiny gnome pattern in Teeny-Tiny Mochimochi, in the Tiny Gnome Kit, and in Tiny Mochis Collection 3.